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NLP Research Group 9

with them; you had better do it yourself." But here Peggotty, who had been going about from one to another in a hurried way, kissing everybody, called out from the cart, in which we all were by this time (Em'ly and I on two little chairs, side by side), that Mrs. Gummidge must do it. So Mrs. Gummidge did it; and, I am sorry to relate, cast a damp upon the festive character of our departure, by immediately bursting into tears, and sinking subdued into the arms of Ham, with the declaration that she knowed she was a burden, and had better be carried to the House at once. Which I really thought was a sensible idea, that Ham might have acted on. [Illustration: Mrs. Gummidge casts a damp on our departure.] Away we went, however, on our holiday excursion; and the first thing we did was to stop at a church, where Mr. Barkis tied the horse to some rails, and went in with Peggotty, leaving little Em'ly and me alone in the chaise. I took that occasion to put my arm round Em'ly's waist, and propose that as I was going away so very soon now, we should determine to be very affectionate to one another, and very happy, all day. Little Em'ly consenting, and allowing me to kiss her, I became desperate; informing her, I recollect, that I never could love another, and that I was prepared to shed the blood of anybody who should aspire to her affections. How merry little Em'ly made herself about it! With what a demure assumption of being immensely older and wiser than I, the fairy little woman said I was "a silly boy;" and then laughed so charmingly that I forgot the pain of being called by that disparaging name, in the pleasure of looking at her. Mr. Barkis and Peggotty were a good while in the church, but came out at last, and then we drove away into the country. As we were going along, Mr. Barkis turned to me, and said, with a wink,--by-the-by, I should hardly have thought, before, that he _could_ wink: "What name was it as I wrote up in the cart?" "Clara Peggotty," I answered. "What name would it be as I should write up now, if there was a tilt here?" "Clara Peggotty, again?" I suggested. "Clara Peggotty BARKIS!" he returned, and burst into a roar of laughter that shook the chaise. In a word, they were married, and had gone into the church for no other purpose. Peggotty was resolved that it should be quietly done; and the clerk had given her away, and there had been no witnesses of the ceremony. She was a little confused when Mr. Barkis made this abrupt announcement of their union, and could not hug me enough in token of her unimpaired affection; but she soon became herself again, and said she was very glad it was over. We drove to a little inn in a bye road, where we were expected, and where we had a very comfortable dinner, and passed the day with great satisfaction. If Peggotty had been married every day for the last ten years, she could hardly have been more at her ease about it; it made no sort of difference in her: she was just the same as ever, and went out for a stroll with little Em'ly and me before tea, while Mr. Barkis philosophically smoked his pipe, and enjoyed himself, I suppose, with the contemplation of his happiness. If so, it sharpened his appetite; for I distinctly call to mind that, although he had eaten a good deal of pork and greens at dinner, and had finished off with a fowl or two, he was obliged to have cold boiled bacon for tea, and disposed of a large quantity without any emotion. I have often thought, since, what an odd, innocent, out-of-the-way kind of wedding it must have been! We got into the chaise again soon after dark, and drove cosily back, looking up at the stars, and talking about them. I was their chief exponent, and opened Mr. Barkis's mind to an amazing extent. I told him all I knew, but he would have believed anything I might have taken it into my head to impart to him; for he had a profound veneration for my abilities, and informed his wife in my hearing, on that very occasion, that I was "a young Roeshus"--by which I think he meant, prodigy. When we had exhausted the subject of the stars, or rather when I had exhausted the mental faculties of Mr. Barkis, little Em'ly and I made a cloak of an old wrapper, and sat under it for the rest of the journey. Ah, how I loved her! What happiness (I thought) if we were married, and were going away anywhere to live among the trees and in the fields, never growing older, never growing wiser, children ever, rambling hand in hand through sunshine and among flowery meadows, laying down our heads on moss at night, in a sweet sleep of purity and peace, and buried by the birds when we were dead! Some such picture, with no real world in it, bright with the light of our innocence, and vague as the stars afar off, was in my mind all the way. I am glad to think there were two such guileless hearts at Peggotty's marriage as little Em'ly's and mine. I am glad to think the Loves and Graces took such airy forms in its homely procession. Well, we came to the old boat again in good time at night; and there Mr. and Mrs. Barkis bade us good-bye, and drove away snugly to their own home. I felt then, for the first time, that I had lost Peggotty. I should have gone to bed with a sore heart indeed under any other roof but that which sheltered little Em'ly's head. Mr. Peggotty and Ham knew what was in my thoughts as well as I did, and were ready with some supper and their hospitable faces to drive it away. Little Em'ly came and sat beside me on the locker, for the only time in all that visit; and it was altogether a wonderful close to a wonderful day. It was a night tide; and soon after we went to bed, Mr. Peggotty and Ham went out to fish. I felt very brave at being left alone in the solitary house, the protector of Em'ly and Mrs. Gummidge, and only wished that a lion or a serpent, or any ill-disposed monster, would make an attack upon us, that I might destroy him, and cover myself with glory. But as nothing of the sort happened to be walking about on Yarmouth flats that night, I provided the best substitute I could by dreaming of dragons until morning. With morning came Peggotty; who called to me, as usual, under my window as if Mr. Barkis the carrier had been from first to last a dream too. After breakfast she took me to her own home, and a beautiful little home it was. Of all the moveables in it, I must have been most impressed by a certain old bureau of some dark wood in the parlor (the tile-floored kitchen was the general sitting-room), with a retreating top which opened, let down, and became a desk, within which, was a large quarto edition of Fox's Book of Martyrs. This precious volume, of which I do not recollect one word, I immediately discovered and immediately applied myself to; and I never visited the house afterwards, but I kneeled on a chair, opened the casket where this gem was enshrined, spread my arms over the desk, and fell to devouring the book afresh. I was chiefly edified, I am afraid, by the pictures, which were numerous, and represented all kinds of dismal horrors; but the Martyrs and Peggotty's house have been inseparable in my mind ever since, and are now. I took leave of Mr. Peggotty, and Ham, and Mrs. Gummidge, and little Em'ly, that day; and passed the night at Peggotty's, in a little room in the roof (with the crocodile-book on a shelf by the bed's head) which was to be always mine, Peggotty said, and should always be kept for me in exactly the same state. "Young or old, Davy dear, as long as I am alive and have this house over my head," said Peggotty, "you shall find it as if I expected you here directly minute. I shall keep it every day, as I used to keep your old little room, my darling; and if you was to go to China, you might think of it as being kept just the same, all the time you were away." I felt the truth and constancy of my dear old nurse, with all my heart, and thanked her as well as I could. That was not very well, for she spoke to me thus, with her arms round my neck, in the morning, and I was going home in the morning, and I went home in the morning, with herself and Mr. Barkis in the cart. They left me at the gate, not easily or lightly; and it was a strange sight to me to see the cart go on, taking Peggotty away, and leaving me under the old elm-trees looking at the house, in which there was no face to look on mine with love or liking any more. And now I fell into a state of neglect, which I cannot look back upon without compassion. I fell at once into a solitary condition,--apart from all friendly notice, apart from the society of all other boys of my own age, apart from all companionship but my own spiritless thoughts,--which seems to cast its gloom upon this paper as I write. What would I have given, to have been sent to the hardest school that ever was kept!--to have been taught something, anyhow, anywhere! No such hope dawned upon me. They disliked me; and they sullenly, sternly, steadily, overlooked me. I think Mr. Murdstone's means were straitened at about this time; but it is little to the purpose. He could not bear me; and in putting me from him he tried, as I believe, to put away the notion that I had any claim upon him--and succeeded. I was not actively ill-used. I was not beaten, or starved; but the wrong that was done to me had no intervals of relenting, and was done in a systematic, passionless manner. Day after day, week after week, month after month, I was coldly neglected. I wonder sometimes, when I think of it, what they would have done if I had been taken with an illness; whether I should have lain down in my lonely room, and languished through it in my usual solitary way, or whether anybody would have helped me out. When Mr. and Miss Murdstone were at home, I took my meals with them; in their absence, I ate and drank by myself. At all times I lounged about the house and neighbourhood quite disregarded, except that they were jealous of my making any friends: thinking, perhaps, that, if I did, I might complain to some one. For this reason, though Mr. Chillip often asked me to go and see him (he was a widower, having, some years before that, lost a little small light-haired wife, whom I can just remember connecting in my own thoughts with a pale tortoise-shell cat), it was but seldom that I enjoyed the happiness of passing an afternoon in his closet of a surgery; reading some book that was new to me, with the smell of the whole pharmacopoeia coming up my nose, or pounding something in a mortar under his mild directions. For the same reason, added no doubt to the old dislike of her, I was seldom allowed to visit Peggotty. Faithful to her promise, she either came to see me, or met me somewhere near, once every week, and never empty-handed; but many and bitter were the disappointments I had, in being refused permission to pay a visit to her at her house. Some few times, however, at long intervals, I was allowed to go there; and then I found out that Mr. Barkis was something of a miser, or as Peggotty dutifully expressed it, was "a little near," and kept a heap of money in a box under his bed, which he pretended was only full of coats and trousers. In this coffer, his riches hid themselves with such a tenacious modesty, that the smallest instalments could only be tempted out by artifice; so that Peggotty had to prepare a long and elaborate scheme, a very Gunpowder Plot, for every Saturday's expenses. All this time I was so conscious of the waste of any promise I had given, and of my being utterly neglected, that I should have been perfectly miserable, I have no doubt, but for the old books. They were my only comfort; and I was as true to them as they were to me, and read them over and over I don't know how many times more. I now approach a period of my life, which I can never lose the remembrance of, while I remember any thing; and the recollection of which has often, without my invocation, come before me like a ghost, and haunted happier times. I had been out, one day, loitering somewhere, in the listless, meditative manner that my way of life engendered, when, turning the corner of a lane near our house, I came upon Mr. Murdstone walking with a gentleman. I was confused, and was going by them, when the gentleman cried: "What! Brooks!" "No, sir, David Copperfield," I said. "Don't tell me. You are Brooks," said the gentleman. "You are Brooks of Sheffield. That's your name." At these words, I observed the gentleman more attentively. His laugh coming to my remembrance too, I knew him to be Mr. Quinion, whom I had gone over to Lowestoft with Mr. Murdstone to see, before--it is no matter--I need not recall when. "And how do you get on, and where are you being educated, Brooks?" said Mr. Quinion. He had put his hand upon my shoulder, and turned me about, to walk with them. I did not know what to reply, and glanced dubiously at Mr. Murdstone. "He is at home at present," said the latter. "He is not being educated anywhere. I don't know what to do with him. He is a difficult subject." That old, double look was on me for a moment; and then his eye darkened with a frown, as it turned, in its aversion, elsewhere. "Humph!" said Mr. Quinion, looking at us both, I thought. "Fine weather!" Silence ensued, and I was considering how I could best disengage my shoulder from his hand, and go away, when he said: "I suppose you are a pretty sharp fellow still? Eh, Brooks?" "Aye! He is sharp enough," said Mr. Murdstone, impatiently. "You had better let him go. He will not thank you for troubling him." On this hint, Mr. Quinion released me, and I made the best of my way home. Looking back as I turned into the front garden, I saw Mr. Murdstone leaning against the wicket of the churchyard, and Mr. Quinion talking to him. They were both looking after me, and I felt that they were speaking of me. Mr. Quinion lay at our house that night. After breakfast, the next morning, I had put my chair away, and was going out of the room, when Mr. Murdstone called me back. He then gravely repaired to another table, where his sister sat herself at her desk. Mr. Quinion, with his hands in his pockets, stood looking out of window; and I stood looking at them all. "David," said Mr. Murdstone, "to the young this is a world for action; not for moping and droning in." --"As you do," added his sister. "Jane Murdstone, leave it to me, if you please. I say, David, to the young this is a world for action, and not for moping and droning in. It is especially so for a young boy of your disposition, which requires a great deal of correcting; and to which no greater service can be done than to force it to conform to the ways of the working world, and to bend it and break it." "For stubbornness won't do here," said his sister. "What it wants, is, to be crushed. And crushed it must be. Shall be, too!" He gave her a look, half in remonstrance, half in approval, and went on: "I suppose you know, David, that I am not rich. At any rate, you know it now. You have received some considerable education already. Education is costly; and even if it were not, and I could afford it, I am of opinion that it would not be at all advantageous to you to be kept at a school. What is before you, is a fight with the world; and the sooner you begin it, the better." I think it occurred to me that I had already begun it, in my poor way: but it occurs to me now, whether or no. "You have heard 'the counting-house' mentioned sometimes," said Mr. Murdstone. "The counting-house, sir?" I repeated. "Of Murdstone and Grinby, in the wine trade," he replied. I suppose I looked uncertain, for he went on hastily: "You have heard the 'counting-house' mentioned, or the business, or the cellars, or the wharf, or something about it." "I think I have heard the business mentioned, sir," I said, remembering what I vaguely knew of his and his sister's resources. "But I don't know when." "It does not matter when," he returned. "Mr. Quinion manages that business." I glanced at the latter deferentially as he stood looking out of window. "Mr. Quinion suggests that it gives employment to some other boys, and that he sees no reason why it shouldn't, on the same terms, give employment to you." "He having," Mr. Quinion observed in a low voice, and half turning round, "no other prospect, Murdstone." Mr. Murdstone, with an impatient, even an angry gesture, resumed, without noticing what he had said: "Those terms are, that you will earn enough for yourself to provide for your eating and drinking, and pocket-money. Your lodging (which I have arranged for) will be paid by me. So will your washing--" "--Which will be kept down to my estimate," said his sister. "Your clothes will be looked after for you, too," said Mr. Murdstone; "as you will not be able, yet awhile, to get them for yourself. So you are now going to London, David, with Mr. Quinion, to begin the world on your own account." "In short, you are provided for," observed his sister; "and will please to do your duty." Though I quite understood that the purpose of this announcement was to get rid of me, I have no distinct remembrance whether it pleased or frightened me. My impression is, that I was in a state of confusion about it, and, oscillating between the two points, touched neither. Nor had I much time for the clearing of my thoughts, as Mr. Quinion was to go upon the morrow. Behold me, on the morrow, in a much-worn little white hat, with a black crape round it for my mother, a black jacket, and a pair of hard stiff corduroy trousers--which Miss Murdstone considered the best armour for the legs in that fight with the world which was now to come off: behold me so attired, and with my little worldly all before me in a small trunk, sitting, a lone lorn child (as Mrs. Gummidge might have said), in the postchaise that was carrying Mr. Quinion to the London coach at Yarmouth! See, how our house and church are lessening in the distance; how the grave beneath the tree is blotted out by intervening objects; how the spire points upward from my old playground no more, and the sky is empty! CHAPTER XI. I BEGIN LIFE ON MY OWN ACCOUNT, AND DON'T LIKE IT. I know enough of the world now, to have almost lost the capacity of being much surprised by anything; but it is matter of some surprise to me, even now, that I can have been so easily thrown away at such an age. A child of excellent abilities, and with strong powers of observation, quick, eager, delicate, and soon hurt bodily or mentally, it seems wonderful to me that nobody should have made any sign in my behalf. But none was made; and I became, at ten years old, a little labouring hind in the service of Murdstone and Grinby. Murdstone and Grinby's warehouse was at the water side. It was down in Blackfriars. Modern improvements have altered the place; but it was the last house at the bottom of a narrow street, curving down hill to the river, with some stairs at the end, where people took boat. It was a crazy old house with a wharf of its own, abutting on the water when the tide was in, and on the mud when the tide was out, and literally overrun with rats. Its panelled rooms, discolored with the dirt and smoke of a hundred years, I dare say; its decaying floors and staircase; the squeaking and scuffling of the old grey rats down in the cellars; and the dirt and rottenness of the place; are things, not of many years ago, in my mind, but of the present instant. They are all before me, just as they were in the evil hour when I went among them for the first time, with my trembling hand in Mr. Quinion's. Murdstone and Grinby's trade was among a good many kinds of people, but an important branch of it was the supply of wines and spirits to certain packet ships. I forget now where they chiefly went, but I think there were some among them that made voyages both to the East and West Indies. I know that a great many empty bottles were one of the consequences of this traffic, and that certain men and boys were employed to examine them against the light, and reject those that were flawed, and to rinse and wash them. When the empty bottles ran short, there were labels to be pasted on full ones, or corks to be fitted to them, or seals to be put upon the corks, or finished bottles to be packed in casks. All this work was my work, and of the boys employed upon it I was one. There were three or four of us, counting me. My working place was established in a corner of the warehouse, where Mr. Quinion could see me, when he chose to stand up on the bottom rail of his stool in the counting-house, and look at me through a window above the desk. Hither, on the first morning of my so auspiciously beginning life on my own account, the oldest of the regular boys was summoned to show me my business. His name was Mick Walker, and he wore a ragged apron and a paper cap. He informed me that his father was a bargeman, and walked, in a black velvet head-dress, in the Lord Mayor's Show. He also informed me that our principal associate would be another boy whom he introduced by the--to me--extraordinary name of Mealy Potatoes. I discovered, however, that this youth had not been christened by that name, but that it had been bestowed upon him in the warehouse, on account of his complexion, which was pale or mealy. Mealy's father was a waterman, who had the additional distinction of being a fireman, and was engaged as such at one of the large theatres; where some young relation of Mealy's--I think his little sister--did Imps in the Pantomimes. No words can express the secret agony of my soul as I sunk into this companionship; compared these henceforth every-day associates with those of my happier childhood--not to say with Steerforth, Traddles, and the rest of those boys; and felt my hopes of growing up to be a learned and distinguished man, crushed in my bosom. The deep remembrance of the sense I had, of being utterly without hope now; of the shame I felt in my position; of the misery it was to my young heart to believe that day by day what I had learned, and thought, and delighted in, and raised my fancy and my emulation up by, would pass away from me, little by little, never to be brought back any more; cannot be written. As often as Mick Walker went away in the course of that forenoon, I mingled my tears with the water in which I was washing the bottles; and sobbed as if there were a flaw in my own breast, and it were in danger of bursting. The counting-house clock was at half-past twelve, and there was general preparation for going to dinner, when Mr. Quinion tapped at the counting-house window, and beckoned to me to go in. I went in, and found there a stoutish, middle-aged person, in a brown surtout and black tights and shoes, with no more hair upon his head (which was a large one, and very shining) than there is upon an egg, and with a very extensive face, which he turned full upon me. His clothes were shabby, but he had an imposing shirt-collar on. He carried a jaunty sort of a stick, with a large pair of rusty tassels to it; and a quizzing-glass hung outside his coat,--for ornament, I afterwards found, as he very seldom looked through it, and couldn't see anything when he did. "This," said Mr. Quinion, in allusion to myself, "is he." "This," said the stranger, with a certain condescending roll in his voice, and a certain indescribable air of doing something genteel, which impressed me very much, "is Master Copperfield. I hope I see you well, sir?" I said I was very well, and hoped he was. I was sufficiently ill at ease, Heaven knows; but it was not in my nature to complain much at that time of my life, so I said I was very well, and hoped he was. "I am," said the stranger, "thank Heaven, quite well. I have received a letter from Mr. Murdstone, in which he mentions that he would desire me to receive into an apartment in the rear of my house, which is at present unoccupied--and is, in short, to be let as a--in short," said the stranger, with a smile and in a burst of confidence, "as a bed-room--the young beginner whom I have now the pleasure to--" and the stranger waved his hand, and settled his chin in his shirt collar. "This is Mr. Micawber," said Mr. Quinion to me. "Ahem!" said the stranger, "that is my name." "Mr. Micawber," said Mr. Quinion, "is known to Mr. Murdstone. He takes orders for us on commission, when he can get any. He has been written to by Mr. Murdstone, on the subject of your lodgings, and he will receive you as a lodger." "My address," said Mr. Micawber, "is Windsor Terrace, City Road. I--in short," said Mr. Micawber, with the same genteel air, and in another burst of confidence--"I live there." I made him a bow. "Under the impression," said Mr. Micawber, "that your peregrinations in this metropolis have not as yet been extensive, and that you might have some difficulty in penetrating the arcana of the Modern Babylon in the direction of the City Road--in short," said Mr. Micawber, in another burst of confidence, "that you might lose yourself--I shall be happy to call this evening, and install you in the knowledge of the nearest way." I thanked him with all my heart, for it was friendly in him to offer to take that trouble. "At what hour," said Mr. Micawber, "shall I--" "At about eight," said Mr. Quinion. "At about eight," said Mr. Micawber. "I beg to wish you good day, Mr. Quinion. I will intrude no longer." So he put on his hat, and went out with his cane under his arm: very upright, and humming a tune when he was clear of the counting-house. Mr. Quinion then formally engaged me to be as useful as I could in the warehouse of Murdstone and Grinby, at a salary, I think, of six shillings a week. I am not clear whether it was six or seven. I am inclined to believe, from my uncertainty on this head, that it was six at first and seven afterwards. He paid me a week down (from his own pocket, I believe), and I gave Mealy sixpence out of it to get my trunk carried to Windsor Terrace at night: it being too heavy for my strength, small as it was. I paid sixpence more for my dinner, which was a meat pie and a turn at a neighbouring pump; and passed the hour which was allowed for that meal, in walking about the streets. At the appointed time in the evening, Mr. Micawber reappeared. I washed my hands and face, to do the greater honour to his gentility, and we walked to our house, as I suppose I must now call it, together; Mr. Micawber impressing the names of streets, and the shapes of corner houses upon me, as we went along, that I might find my way back, easily, in the morning. Arrived at his house in Windsor Terrace (which I noticed was shabby like himself, but also, like himself, made all the show it could), he presented me to Mrs. Micawber, a thin and faded lady, not at all young, who was sitting in

glad

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

with them; you had better do it yourself." But here Peggotty, who had been going about from one to another in a hurried way, kissing everybody, called out from the cart, in which we all were by this time (Em'ly and I on two little chairs, side by side), that Mrs. Gummidge must do it. So Mrs. Gummidge did it; and, I am sorry to relate, cast a damp upon the festive character of our departure, by immediately bursting into tears, and sinking subdued into the arms of Ham, with the declaration that she knowed she was a burden, and had better be carried to the House at once. Which I really thought was a sensible idea, that Ham might have acted on. [Illustration: Mrs. Gummidge casts a damp on our departure.] Away we went, however, on our holiday excursion; and the first thing we did was to stop at a church, where Mr. Barkis tied the horse to some rails, and went in with Peggotty, leaving little Em'ly and me alone in the chaise. I took that occasion to put my arm round Em'ly's waist, and propose that as I was going away so very soon now, we should determine to be very affectionate to one another, and very happy, all day. Little Em'ly consenting, and allowing me to kiss her, I became desperate; informing her, I recollect, that I never could love another, and that I was prepared to shed the blood of anybody who should aspire to her affections. How merry little Em'ly made herself about it! With what a demure assumption of being immensely older and wiser than I, the fairy little woman said I was "a silly boy;" and then laughed so charmingly that I forgot the pain of being called by that disparaging name, in the pleasure of looking at her. Mr. Barkis and Peggotty were a good while in the church, but came out at last, and then we drove away into the country. As we were going along, Mr. Barkis turned to me, and said, with a wink,--by-the-by, I should hardly have thought, before, that he _could_ wink: "What name was it as I wrote up in the cart?" "Clara Peggotty," I answered. "What name would it be as I should write up now, if there was a tilt here?" "Clara Peggotty, again?" I suggested. "Clara Peggotty BARKIS!" he returned, and burst into a roar of laughter that shook the chaise. In a word, they were married, and had gone into the church for no other purpose. Peggotty was resolved that it should be quietly done; and the clerk had given her away, and there had been no witnesses of the ceremony. She was a little confused when Mr. Barkis made this abrupt announcement of their union, and could not hug me enough in token of her unimpaired affection; but she soon became herself again, and said she was very glad it was over. We drove to a little inn in a bye road, where we were expected, and where we had a very comfortable dinner, and passed the day with great satisfaction. If Peggotty had been married every day for the last ten years, she could hardly have been more at her ease about it; it made no sort of difference in her: she was just the same as ever, and went out for a stroll with little Em'ly and me before tea, while Mr. Barkis philosophically smoked his pipe, and enjoyed himself, I suppose, with the contemplation of his happiness. If so, it sharpened his appetite; for I distinctly call to mind that, although he had eaten a good deal of pork and greens at dinner, and had finished off with a fowl or two, he was obliged to have cold boiled bacon for tea, and disposed of a large quantity without any emotion. I have often thought, since, what an odd, innocent, out-of-the-way kind of wedding it must have been! We got into the chaise again soon after dark, and drove cosily back, looking up at the stars, and talking about them. I was their chief exponent, and opened Mr. Barkis's mind to an amazing extent. I told him all I knew, but he would have believed anything I might have taken it into my head to impart to him; for he had a profound veneration for my abilities, and informed his wife in my hearing, on that very occasion, that I was "a young Roeshus"--by which I think he meant, prodigy. When we had exhausted the subject of the stars, or rather when I had exhausted the mental faculties of Mr. Barkis, little Em'ly and I made a cloak of an old wrapper, and sat under it for the rest of the journey. Ah, how I loved her! What happiness (I thought) if we were married, and were going away anywhere to live among the trees and in the fields, never growing older, never growing wiser, children ever, rambling hand in hand through sunshine and among flowery meadows, laying down our heads on moss at night, in a sweet sleep of purity and peace, and buried by the birds when we were dead! Some such picture, with no real world in it, bright with the light of our innocence, and vague as the stars afar off, was in my mind all the way. I am glad to think there were two such guileless hearts at Peggotty's marriage as little Em'ly's and mine. I am glad to think the Loves and Graces took such airy forms in its homely procession. Well, we came to the old boat again in good time at night; and there Mr. and Mrs. Barkis bade us good-bye, and drove away snugly to their own home. I felt then, for the first time, that I had lost Peggotty. I should have gone to bed with a sore heart indeed under any other roof but that which sheltered little Em'ly's head. Mr. Peggotty and Ham knew what was in my thoughts as well as I did, and were ready with some supper and their hospitable faces to drive it away. Little Em'ly came and sat beside me on the locker, for the only time in all that visit; and it was altogether a wonderful close to a wonderful day. It was a night tide; and soon after we went to bed, Mr. Peggotty and Ham went out to fish. I felt very brave at being left alone in the solitary house, the protector of Em'ly and Mrs. Gummidge, and only wished that a lion or a serpent, or any ill-disposed monster, would make an attack upon us, that I might destroy him, and cover myself with glory. But as nothing of the sort happened to be walking about on Yarmouth flats that night, I provided the best substitute I could by dreaming of dragons until morning. With morning came Peggotty; who called to me, as usual, under my window as if Mr. Barkis the carrier had been from first to last a dream too. After breakfast she took me to her own home, and a beautiful little home it was. Of all the moveables in it, I must have been most impressed by a certain old bureau of some dark wood in the parlor (the tile-floored kitchen was the general sitting-room), with a retreating top which opened, let down, and became a desk, within which, was a large quarto edition of Fox's Book of Martyrs. This precious volume, of which I do not recollect one word, I immediately discovered and immediately applied myself to; and I never visited the house afterwards, but I kneeled on a chair, opened the casket where this gem was enshrined, spread my arms over the desk, and fell to devouring the book afresh. I was chiefly edified, I am afraid, by the pictures, which were numerous, and represented all kinds of dismal horrors; but the Martyrs and Peggotty's house have been inseparable in my mind ever since, and are now. I took leave of Mr. Peggotty, and Ham, and Mrs. Gummidge, and little Em'ly, that day; and passed the night at Peggotty's, in a little room in the roof (with the crocodile-book on a shelf by the bed's head) which was to be always mine, Peggotty said, and should always be kept for me in exactly the same state. "Young or old, Davy dear, as long as I am alive and have this house over my head," said Peggotty, "you shall find it as if I expected you here directly minute. I shall keep it every day, as I used to keep your old little room, my darling; and if you was to go to China, you might think of it as being kept just the same, all the time you were away." I felt the truth and constancy of my dear old nurse, with all my heart, and thanked her as well as I could. That was not very well, for she spoke to me thus, with her arms round my neck, in the morning, and I was going home in the morning, and I went home in the morning, with herself and Mr. Barkis in the cart. They left me at the gate, not easily or lightly; and it was a strange sight to me to see the cart go on, taking Peggotty away, and leaving me under the old elm-trees looking at the house, in which there was no face to look on mine with love or liking any more. And now I fell into a state of neglect, which I cannot look back upon without compassion. I fell at once into a solitary condition,--apart from all friendly notice, apart from the society of all other boys of my own age, apart from all companionship but my own spiritless thoughts,--which seems to cast its gloom upon this paper as I write. What would I have given, to have been sent to the hardest school that ever was kept!--to have been taught something, anyhow, anywhere! No such hope dawned upon me. They disliked me; and they sullenly, sternly, steadily, overlooked me. I think Mr. Murdstone's means were straitened at about this time; but it is little to the purpose. He could not bear me; and in putting me from him he tried, as I believe, to put away the notion that I had any claim upon him--and succeeded. I was not actively ill-used. I was not beaten, or starved; but the wrong that was done to me had no intervals of relenting, and was done in a systematic, passionless manner. Day after day, week after week, month after month, I was coldly neglected. I wonder sometimes, when I think of it, what they would have done if I had been taken with an illness; whether I should have lain down in my lonely room, and languished through it in my usual solitary way, or whether anybody would have helped me out. When Mr. and Miss Murdstone were at home, I took my meals with them; in their absence, I ate and drank by myself. At all times I lounged about the house and neighbourhood quite disregarded, except that they were jealous of my making any friends: thinking, perhaps, that, if I did, I might complain to some one. For this reason, though Mr. Chillip often asked me to go and see him (he was a widower, having, some years before that, lost a little small light-haired wife, whom I can just remember connecting in my own thoughts with a pale tortoise-shell cat), it was but seldom that I enjoyed the happiness of passing an afternoon in his closet of a surgery; reading some book that was new to me, with the smell of the whole pharmacopoeia coming up my nose, or pounding something in a mortar under his mild directions. For the same reason, added no doubt to the old dislike of her, I was seldom allowed to visit Peggotty. Faithful to her promise, she either came to see me, or met me somewhere near, once every week, and never empty-handed; but many and bitter were the disappointments I had, in being refused permission to pay a visit to her at her house. Some few times, however, at long intervals, I was allowed to go there; and then I found out that Mr. Barkis was something of a miser, or as Peggotty dutifully expressed it, was "a little near," and kept a heap of money in a box under his bed, which he pretended was only full of coats and trousers. In this coffer, his riches hid themselves with such a tenacious modesty, that the smallest instalments could only be tempted out by artifice; so that Peggotty had to prepare a long and elaborate scheme, a very Gunpowder Plot, for every Saturday's expenses. All this time I was so conscious of the waste of any promise I had given, and of my being utterly neglected, that I should have been perfectly miserable, I have no doubt, but for the old books. They were my only comfort; and I was as true to them as they were to me, and read them over and over I don't know how many times more. I now approach a period of my life, which I can never lose the remembrance of, while I remember any thing; and the recollection of which has often, without my invocation, come before me like a ghost, and haunted happier times. I had been out, one day, loitering somewhere, in the listless, meditative manner that my way of life engendered, when, turning the corner of a lane near our house, I came upon Mr. Murdstone walking with a gentleman. I was confused, and was going by them, when the gentleman cried: "What! Brooks!" "No, sir, David Copperfield," I said. "Don't tell me. You are Brooks," said the gentleman. "You are Brooks of Sheffield. That's your name." At these words, I observed the gentleman more attentively. His laugh coming to my remembrance too, I knew him to be Mr. Quinion, whom I had gone over to Lowestoft with Mr. Murdstone to see, before--it is no matter--I need not recall when. "And how do you get on, and where are you being educated, Brooks?" said Mr. Quinion. He had put his hand upon my shoulder, and turned me about, to walk with them. I did not know what to reply, and glanced dubiously at Mr. Murdstone. "He is at home at present," said the latter. "He is not being educated anywhere. I don't know what to do with him. He is a difficult subject." That old, double look was on me for a moment; and then his eye darkened with a frown, as it turned, in its aversion, elsewhere. "Humph!" said Mr. Quinion, looking at us both, I thought. "Fine weather!" Silence ensued, and I was considering how I could best disengage my shoulder from his hand, and go away, when he said: "I suppose you are a pretty sharp fellow still? Eh, Brooks?" "Aye! He is sharp enough," said Mr. Murdstone, impatiently. "You had better let him go. He will not thank you for troubling him." On this hint, Mr. Quinion released me, and I made the best of my way home. Looking back as I turned into the front garden, I saw Mr. Murdstone leaning against the wicket of the churchyard, and Mr. Quinion talking to him. They were both looking after me, and I felt that they were speaking of me. Mr. Quinion lay at our house that night. After breakfast, the next morning, I had put my chair away, and was going out of the room, when Mr. Murdstone called me back. He then gravely repaired to another table, where his sister sat herself at her desk. Mr. Quinion, with his hands in his pockets, stood looking out of window; and I stood looking at them all. "David," said Mr. Murdstone, "to the young this is a world for action; not for moping and droning in." --"As you do," added his sister. "Jane Murdstone, leave it to me, if you please. I say, David, to the young this is a world for action, and not for moping and droning in. It is especially so for a young boy of your disposition, which requires a great deal of correcting; and to which no greater service can be done than to force it to conform to the ways of the working world, and to bend it and break it." "For stubbornness won't do here," said his sister. "What it wants, is, to be crushed. And crushed it must be. Shall be, too!" He gave her a look, half in remonstrance, half in approval, and went on: "I suppose you know, David, that I am not rich. At any rate, you know it now. You have received some considerable education already. Education is costly; and even if it were not, and I could afford it, I am of opinion that it would not be at all advantageous to you to be kept at a school. What is before you, is a fight with the world; and the sooner you begin it, the better." I think it occurred to me that I had already begun it, in my poor way: but it occurs to me now, whether or no. "You have heard 'the counting-house' mentioned sometimes," said Mr. Murdstone. "The counting-house, sir?" I repeated. "Of Murdstone and Grinby, in the wine trade," he replied. I suppose I looked uncertain, for he went on hastily: "You have heard the 'counting-house' mentioned, or the business, or the cellars, or the wharf, or something about it." "I think I have heard the business mentioned, sir," I said, remembering what I vaguely knew of his and his sister's resources. "But I don't know when." "It does not matter when," he returned. "Mr. Quinion manages that business." I glanced at the latter deferentially as he stood looking out of window. "Mr. Quinion suggests that it gives employment to some other boys, and that he sees no reason why it shouldn't, on the same terms, give employment to you." "He having," Mr. Quinion observed in a low voice, and half turning round, "no other prospect, Murdstone." Mr. Murdstone, with an impatient, even an angry gesture, resumed, without noticing what he had said: "Those terms are, that you will earn enough for yourself to provide for your eating and drinking, and pocket-money. Your lodging (which I have arranged for) will be paid by me. So will your washing--" "--Which will be kept down to my estimate," said his sister. "Your clothes will be looked after for you, too," said Mr. Murdstone; "as you will not be able, yet awhile, to get them for yourself. So you are now going to London, David, with Mr. Quinion, to begin the world on your own account." "In short, you are provided for," observed his sister; "and will please to do your duty." Though I quite understood that the purpose of this announcement was to get rid of me, I have no distinct remembrance whether it pleased or frightened me. My impression is, that I was in a state of confusion about it, and, oscillating between the two points, touched neither. Nor had I much time for the clearing of my thoughts, as Mr. Quinion was to go upon the morrow. Behold me, on the morrow, in a much-worn little white hat, with a black crape round it for my mother, a black jacket, and a pair of hard stiff corduroy trousers--which Miss Murdstone considered the best armour for the legs in that fight with the world which was now to come off: behold me so attired, and with my little worldly all before me in a small trunk, sitting, a lone lorn child (as Mrs. Gummidge might have said), in the postchaise that was carrying Mr. Quinion to the London coach at Yarmouth! See, how our house and church are lessening in the distance; how the grave beneath the tree is blotted out by intervening objects; how the spire points upward from my old playground no more, and the sky is empty! CHAPTER XI. I BEGIN LIFE ON MY OWN ACCOUNT, AND DON'T LIKE IT. I know enough of the world now, to have almost lost the capacity of being much surprised by anything; but it is matter of some surprise to me, even now, that I can have been so easily thrown away at such an age. A child of excellent abilities, and with strong powers of observation, quick, eager, delicate, and soon hurt bodily or mentally, it seems wonderful to me that nobody should have made any sign in my behalf. But none was made; and I became, at ten years old, a little labouring hind in the service of Murdstone and Grinby. Murdstone and Grinby's warehouse was at the water side. It was down in Blackfriars. Modern improvements have altered the place; but it was the last house at the bottom of a narrow street, curving down hill to the river, with some stairs at the end, where people took boat. It was a crazy old house with a wharf of its own, abutting on the water when the tide was in, and on the mud when the tide was out, and literally overrun with rats. Its panelled rooms, discolored with the dirt and smoke of a hundred years, I dare say; its decaying floors and staircase; the squeaking and scuffling of the old grey rats down in the cellars; and the dirt and rottenness of the place; are things, not of many years ago, in my mind, but of the present instant. They are all before me, just as they were in the evil hour when I went among them for the first time, with my trembling hand in Mr. Quinion's. Murdstone and Grinby's trade was among a good many kinds of people, but an important branch of it was the supply of wines and spirits to certain packet ships. I forget now where they chiefly went, but I think there were some among them that made voyages both to the East and West Indies. I know that a great many empty bottles were one of the consequences of this traffic, and that certain men and boys were employed to examine them against the light, and reject those that were flawed, and to rinse and wash them. When the empty bottles ran short, there were labels to be pasted on full ones, or corks to be fitted to them, or seals to be put upon the corks, or finished bottles to be packed in casks. All this work was my work, and of the boys employed upon it I was one. There were three or four of us, counting me. My working place was established in a corner of the warehouse, where Mr. Quinion could see me, when he chose to stand up on the bottom rail of his stool in the counting-house, and look at me through a window above the desk. Hither, on the first morning of my so auspiciously beginning life on my own account, the oldest of the regular boys was summoned to show me my business. His name was Mick Walker, and he wore a ragged apron and a paper cap. He informed me that his father was a bargeman, and walked, in a black velvet head-dress, in the Lord Mayor's Show. He also informed me that our principal associate would be another boy whom he introduced by the--to me--extraordinary name of Mealy Potatoes. I discovered, however, that this youth had not been christened by that name, but that it had been bestowed upon him in the warehouse, on account of his complexion, which was pale or mealy. Mealy's father was a waterman, who had the additional distinction of being a fireman, and was engaged as such at one of the large theatres; where some young relation of Mealy's--I think his little sister--did Imps in the Pantomimes. No words can express the secret agony of my soul as I sunk into this companionship; compared these henceforth every-day associates with those of my happier childhood--not to say with Steerforth, Traddles, and the rest of those boys; and felt my hopes of growing up to be a learned and distinguished man, crushed in my bosom. The deep remembrance of the sense I had, of being utterly without hope now; of the shame I felt in my position; of the misery it was to my young heart to believe that day by day what I had learned, and thought, and delighted in, and raised my fancy and my emulation up by, would pass away from me, little by little, never to be brought back any more; cannot be written. As often as Mick Walker went away in the course of that forenoon, I mingled my tears with the water in which I was washing the bottles; and sobbed as if there were a flaw in my own breast, and it were in danger of bursting. The counting-house clock was at half-past twelve, and there was general preparation for going to dinner, when Mr. Quinion tapped at the counting-house window, and beckoned to me to go in. I went in, and found there a stoutish, middle-aged person, in a brown surtout and black tights and shoes, with no more hair upon his head (which was a large one, and very shining) than there is upon an egg, and with a very extensive face, which he turned full upon me. His clothes were shabby, but he had an imposing shirt-collar on. He carried a jaunty sort of a stick, with a large pair of rusty tassels to it; and a quizzing-glass hung outside his coat,--for ornament, I afterwards found, as he very seldom looked through it, and couldn't see anything when he did. "This," said Mr. Quinion, in allusion to myself, "is he." "This," said the stranger, with a certain condescending roll in his voice, and a certain indescribable air of doing something genteel, which impressed me very much, "is Master Copperfield. I hope I see you well, sir?" I said I was very well, and hoped he was. I was sufficiently ill at ease, Heaven knows; but it was not in my nature to complain much at that time of my life, so I said I was very well, and hoped he was. "I am," said the stranger, "thank Heaven, quite well. I have received a letter from Mr. Murdstone, in which he mentions that he would desire me to receive into an apartment in the rear of my house, which is at present unoccupied--and is, in short, to be let as a--in short," said the stranger, with a smile and in a burst of confidence, "as a bed-room--the young beginner whom I have now the pleasure to--" and the stranger waved his hand, and settled his chin in his shirt collar. "This is Mr. Micawber," said Mr. Quinion to me. "Ahem!" said the stranger, "that is my name." "Mr. Micawber," said Mr. Quinion, "is known to Mr. Murdstone. He takes orders for us on commission, when he can get any. He has been written to by Mr. Murdstone, on the subject of your lodgings, and he will receive you as a lodger." "My address," said Mr. Micawber, "is Windsor Terrace, City Road. I--in short," said Mr. Micawber, with the same genteel air, and in another burst of confidence--"I live there." I made him a bow. "Under the impression," said Mr. Micawber, "that your peregrinations in this metropolis have not as yet been extensive, and that you might have some difficulty in penetrating the arcana of the Modern Babylon in the direction of the City Road--in short," said Mr. Micawber, in another burst of confidence, "that you might lose yourself--I shall be happy to call this evening, and install you in the knowledge of the nearest way." I thanked him with all my heart, for it was friendly in him to offer to take that trouble. "At what hour," said Mr. Micawber, "shall I--" "At about eight," said Mr. Quinion. "At about eight," said Mr. Micawber. "I beg to wish you good day, Mr. Quinion. I will intrude no longer." So he put on his hat, and went out with his cane under his arm: very upright, and humming a tune when he was clear of the counting-house. Mr. Quinion then formally engaged me to be as useful as I could in the warehouse of Murdstone and Grinby, at a salary, I think, of six shillings a week. I am not clear whether it was six or seven. I am inclined to believe, from my uncertainty on this head, that it was six at first and seven afterwards. He paid me a week down (from his own pocket, I believe), and I gave Mealy sixpence out of it to get my trunk carried to Windsor Terrace at night: it being too heavy for my strength, small as it was. I paid sixpence more for my dinner, which was a meat pie and a turn at a neighbouring pump; and passed the hour which was allowed for that meal, in walking about the streets. At the appointed time in the evening, Mr. Micawber reappeared. I washed my hands and face, to do the greater honour to his gentility, and we walked to our house, as I suppose I must now call it, together; Mr. Micawber impressing the names of streets, and the shapes of corner houses upon me, as we went along, that I might find my way back, easily, in the morning. Arrived at his house in Windsor Terrace (which I noticed was shabby like himself, but also, like himself, made all the show it could), he presented me to Mrs. Micawber, a thin and faded lady, not at all young, who was sitting in

become

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

with them; you had better do it yourself." But here Peggotty, who had been going about from one to another in a hurried way, kissing everybody, called out from the cart, in which we all were by this time (Em'ly and I on two little chairs, side by side), that Mrs. Gummidge must do it. So Mrs. Gummidge did it; and, I am sorry to relate, cast a damp upon the festive character of our departure, by immediately bursting into tears, and sinking subdued into the arms of Ham, with the declaration that she knowed she was a burden, and had better be carried to the House at once. Which I really thought was a sensible idea, that Ham might have acted on. [Illustration: Mrs. Gummidge casts a damp on our departure.] Away we went, however, on our holiday excursion; and the first thing we did was to stop at a church, where Mr. Barkis tied the horse to some rails, and went in with Peggotty, leaving little Em'ly and me alone in the chaise. I took that occasion to put my arm round Em'ly's waist, and propose that as I was going away so very soon now, we should determine to be very affectionate to one another, and very happy, all day. Little Em'ly consenting, and allowing me to kiss her, I became desperate; informing her, I recollect, that I never could love another, and that I was prepared to shed the blood of anybody who should aspire to her affections. How merry little Em'ly made herself about it! With what a demure assumption of being immensely older and wiser than I, the fairy little woman said I was "a silly boy;" and then laughed so charmingly that I forgot the pain of being called by that disparaging name, in the pleasure of looking at her. Mr. Barkis and Peggotty were a good while in the church, but came out at last, and then we drove away into the country. As we were going along, Mr. Barkis turned to me, and said, with a wink,--by-the-by, I should hardly have thought, before, that he _could_ wink: "What name was it as I wrote up in the cart?" "Clara Peggotty," I answered. "What name would it be as I should write up now, if there was a tilt here?" "Clara Peggotty, again?" I suggested. "Clara Peggotty BARKIS!" he returned, and burst into a roar of laughter that shook the chaise. In a word, they were married, and had gone into the church for no other purpose. Peggotty was resolved that it should be quietly done; and the clerk had given her away, and there had been no witnesses of the ceremony. She was a little confused when Mr. Barkis made this abrupt announcement of their union, and could not hug me enough in token of her unimpaired affection; but she soon became herself again, and said she was very glad it was over. We drove to a little inn in a bye road, where we were expected, and where we had a very comfortable dinner, and passed the day with great satisfaction. If Peggotty had been married every day for the last ten years, she could hardly have been more at her ease about it; it made no sort of difference in her: she was just the same as ever, and went out for a stroll with little Em'ly and me before tea, while Mr. Barkis philosophically smoked his pipe, and enjoyed himself, I suppose, with the contemplation of his happiness. If so, it sharpened his appetite; for I distinctly call to mind that, although he had eaten a good deal of pork and greens at dinner, and had finished off with a fowl or two, he was obliged to have cold boiled bacon for tea, and disposed of a large quantity without any emotion. I have often thought, since, what an odd, innocent, out-of-the-way kind of wedding it must have been! We got into the chaise again soon after dark, and drove cosily back, looking up at the stars, and talking about them. I was their chief exponent, and opened Mr. Barkis's mind to an amazing extent. I told him all I knew, but he would have believed anything I might have taken it into my head to impart to him; for he had a profound veneration for my abilities, and informed his wife in my hearing, on that very occasion, that I was "a young Roeshus"--by which I think he meant, prodigy. When we had exhausted the subject of the stars, or rather when I had exhausted the mental faculties of Mr. Barkis, little Em'ly and I made a cloak of an old wrapper, and sat under it for the rest of the journey. Ah, how I loved her! What happiness (I thought) if we were married, and were going away anywhere to live among the trees and in the fields, never growing older, never growing wiser, children ever, rambling hand in hand through sunshine and among flowery meadows, laying down our heads on moss at night, in a sweet sleep of purity and peace, and buried by the birds when we were dead! Some such picture, with no real world in it, bright with the light of our innocence, and vague as the stars afar off, was in my mind all the way. I am glad to think there were two such guileless hearts at Peggotty's marriage as little Em'ly's and mine. I am glad to think the Loves and Graces took such airy forms in its homely procession. Well, we came to the old boat again in good time at night; and there Mr. and Mrs. Barkis bade us good-bye, and drove away snugly to their own home. I felt then, for the first time, that I had lost Peggotty. I should have gone to bed with a sore heart indeed under any other roof but that which sheltered little Em'ly's head. Mr. Peggotty and Ham knew what was in my thoughts as well as I did, and were ready with some supper and their hospitable faces to drive it away. Little Em'ly came and sat beside me on the locker, for the only time in all that visit; and it was altogether a wonderful close to a wonderful day. It was a night tide; and soon after we went to bed, Mr. Peggotty and Ham went out to fish. I felt very brave at being left alone in the solitary house, the protector of Em'ly and Mrs. Gummidge, and only wished that a lion or a serpent, or any ill-disposed monster, would make an attack upon us, that I might destroy him, and cover myself with glory. But as nothing of the sort happened to be walking about on Yarmouth flats that night, I provided the best substitute I could by dreaming of dragons until morning. With morning came Peggotty; who called to me, as usual, under my window as if Mr. Barkis the carrier had been from first to last a dream too. After breakfast she took me to her own home, and a beautiful little home it was. Of all the moveables in it, I must have been most impressed by a certain old bureau of some dark wood in the parlor (the tile-floored kitchen was the general sitting-room), with a retreating top which opened, let down, and became a desk, within which, was a large quarto edition of Fox's Book of Martyrs. This precious volume, of which I do not recollect one word, I immediately discovered and immediately applied myself to; and I never visited the house afterwards, but I kneeled on a chair, opened the casket where this gem was enshrined, spread my arms over the desk, and fell to devouring the book afresh. I was chiefly edified, I am afraid, by the pictures, which were numerous, and represented all kinds of dismal horrors; but the Martyrs and Peggotty's house have been inseparable in my mind ever since, and are now. I took leave of Mr. Peggotty, and Ham, and Mrs. Gummidge, and little Em'ly, that day; and passed the night at Peggotty's, in a little room in the roof (with the crocodile-book on a shelf by the bed's head) which was to be always mine, Peggotty said, and should always be kept for me in exactly the same state. "Young or old, Davy dear, as long as I am alive and have this house over my head," said Peggotty, "you shall find it as if I expected you here directly minute. I shall keep it every day, as I used to keep your old little room, my darling; and if you was to go to China, you might think of it as being kept just the same, all the time you were away." I felt the truth and constancy of my dear old nurse, with all my heart, and thanked her as well as I could. That was not very well, for she spoke to me thus, with her arms round my neck, in the morning, and I was going home in the morning, and I went home in the morning, with herself and Mr. Barkis in the cart. They left me at the gate, not easily or lightly; and it was a strange sight to me to see the cart go on, taking Peggotty away, and leaving me under the old elm-trees looking at the house, in which there was no face to look on mine with love or liking any more. And now I fell into a state of neglect, which I cannot look back upon without compassion. I fell at once into a solitary condition,--apart from all friendly notice, apart from the society of all other boys of my own age, apart from all companionship but my own spiritless thoughts,--which seems to cast its gloom upon this paper as I write. What would I have given, to have been sent to the hardest school that ever was kept!--to have been taught something, anyhow, anywhere! No such hope dawned upon me. They disliked me; and they sullenly, sternly, steadily, overlooked me. I think Mr. Murdstone's means were straitened at about this time; but it is little to the purpose. He could not bear me; and in putting me from him he tried, as I believe, to put away the notion that I had any claim upon him--and succeeded. I was not actively ill-used. I was not beaten, or starved; but the wrong that was done to me had no intervals of relenting, and was done in a systematic, passionless manner. Day after day, week after week, month after month, I was coldly neglected. I wonder sometimes, when I think of it, what they would have done if I had been taken with an illness; whether I should have lain down in my lonely room, and languished through it in my usual solitary way, or whether anybody would have helped me out. When Mr. and Miss Murdstone were at home, I took my meals with them; in their absence, I ate and drank by myself. At all times I lounged about the house and neighbourhood quite disregarded, except that they were jealous of my making any friends: thinking, perhaps, that, if I did, I might complain to some one. For this reason, though Mr. Chillip often asked me to go and see him (he was a widower, having, some years before that, lost a little small light-haired wife, whom I can just remember connecting in my own thoughts with a pale tortoise-shell cat), it was but seldom that I enjoyed the happiness of passing an afternoon in his closet of a surgery; reading some book that was new to me, with the smell of the whole pharmacopoeia coming up my nose, or pounding something in a mortar under his mild directions. For the same reason, added no doubt to the old dislike of her, I was seldom allowed to visit Peggotty. Faithful to her promise, she either came to see me, or met me somewhere near, once every week, and never empty-handed; but many and bitter were the disappointments I had, in being refused permission to pay a visit to her at her house. Some few times, however, at long intervals, I was allowed to go there; and then I found out that Mr. Barkis was something of a miser, or as Peggotty dutifully expressed it, was "a little near," and kept a heap of money in a box under his bed, which he pretended was only full of coats and trousers. In this coffer, his riches hid themselves with such a tenacious modesty, that the smallest instalments could only be tempted out by artifice; so that Peggotty had to prepare a long and elaborate scheme, a very Gunpowder Plot, for every Saturday's expenses. All this time I was so conscious of the waste of any promise I had given, and of my being utterly neglected, that I should have been perfectly miserable, I have no doubt, but for the old books. They were my only comfort; and I was as true to them as they were to me, and read them over and over I don't know how many times more. I now approach a period of my life, which I can never lose the remembrance of, while I remember any thing; and the recollection of which has often, without my invocation, come before me like a ghost, and haunted happier times. I had been out, one day, loitering somewhere, in the listless, meditative manner that my way of life engendered, when, turning the corner of a lane near our house, I came upon Mr. Murdstone walking with a gentleman. I was confused, and was going by them, when the gentleman cried: "What! Brooks!" "No, sir, David Copperfield," I said. "Don't tell me. You are Brooks," said the gentleman. "You are Brooks of Sheffield. That's your name." At these words, I observed the gentleman more attentively. His laugh coming to my remembrance too, I knew him to be Mr. Quinion, whom I had gone over to Lowestoft with Mr. Murdstone to see, before--it is no matter--I need not recall when. "And how do you get on, and where are you being educated, Brooks?" said Mr. Quinion. He had put his hand upon my shoulder, and turned me about, to walk with them. I did not know what to reply, and glanced dubiously at Mr. Murdstone. "He is at home at present," said the latter. "He is not being educated anywhere. I don't know what to do with him. He is a difficult subject." That old, double look was on me for a moment; and then his eye darkened with a frown, as it turned, in its aversion, elsewhere. "Humph!" said Mr. Quinion, looking at us both, I thought. "Fine weather!" Silence ensued, and I was considering how I could best disengage my shoulder from his hand, and go away, when he said: "I suppose you are a pretty sharp fellow still? Eh, Brooks?" "Aye! He is sharp enough," said Mr. Murdstone, impatiently. "You had better let him go. He will not thank you for troubling him." On this hint, Mr. Quinion released me, and I made the best of my way home. Looking back as I turned into the front garden, I saw Mr. Murdstone leaning against the wicket of the churchyard, and Mr. Quinion talking to him. They were both looking after me, and I felt that they were speaking of me. Mr. Quinion lay at our house that night. After breakfast, the next morning, I had put my chair away, and was going out of the room, when Mr. Murdstone called me back. He then gravely repaired to another table, where his sister sat herself at her desk. Mr. Quinion, with his hands in his pockets, stood looking out of window; and I stood looking at them all. "David," said Mr. Murdstone, "to the young this is a world for action; not for moping and droning in." --"As you do," added his sister. "Jane Murdstone, leave it to me, if you please. I say, David, to the young this is a world for action, and not for moping and droning in. It is especially so for a young boy of your disposition, which requires a great deal of correcting; and to which no greater service can be done than to force it to conform to the ways of the working world, and to bend it and break it." "For stubbornness won't do here," said his sister. "What it wants, is, to be crushed. And crushed it must be. Shall be, too!" He gave her a look, half in remonstrance, half in approval, and went on: "I suppose you know, David, that I am not rich. At any rate, you know it now. You have received some considerable education already. Education is costly; and even if it were not, and I could afford it, I am of opinion that it would not be at all advantageous to you to be kept at a school. What is before you, is a fight with the world; and the sooner you begin it, the better." I think it occurred to me that I had already begun it, in my poor way: but it occurs to me now, whether or no. "You have heard 'the counting-house' mentioned sometimes," said Mr. Murdstone. "The counting-house, sir?" I repeated. "Of Murdstone and Grinby, in the wine trade," he replied. I suppose I looked uncertain, for he went on hastily: "You have heard the 'counting-house' mentioned, or the business, or the cellars, or the wharf, or something about it." "I think I have heard the business mentioned, sir," I said, remembering what I vaguely knew of his and his sister's resources. "But I don't know when." "It does not matter when," he returned. "Mr. Quinion manages that business." I glanced at the latter deferentially as he stood looking out of window. "Mr. Quinion suggests that it gives employment to some other boys, and that he sees no reason why it shouldn't, on the same terms, give employment to you." "He having," Mr. Quinion observed in a low voice, and half turning round, "no other prospect, Murdstone." Mr. Murdstone, with an impatient, even an angry gesture, resumed, without noticing what he had said: "Those terms are, that you will earn enough for yourself to provide for your eating and drinking, and pocket-money. Your lodging (which I have arranged for) will be paid by me. So will your washing--" "--Which will be kept down to my estimate," said his sister. "Your clothes will be looked after for you, too," said Mr. Murdstone; "as you will not be able, yet awhile, to get them for yourself. So you are now going to London, David, with Mr. Quinion, to begin the world on your own account." "In short, you are provided for," observed his sister; "and will please to do your duty." Though I quite understood that the purpose of this announcement was to get rid of me, I have no distinct remembrance whether it pleased or frightened me. My impression is, that I was in a state of confusion about it, and, oscillating between the two points, touched neither. Nor had I much time for the clearing of my thoughts, as Mr. Quinion was to go upon the morrow. Behold me, on the morrow, in a much-worn little white hat, with a black crape round it for my mother, a black jacket, and a pair of hard stiff corduroy trousers--which Miss Murdstone considered the best armour for the legs in that fight with the world which was now to come off: behold me so attired, and with my little worldly all before me in a small trunk, sitting, a lone lorn child (as Mrs. Gummidge might have said), in the postchaise that was carrying Mr. Quinion to the London coach at Yarmouth! See, how our house and church are lessening in the distance; how the grave beneath the tree is blotted out by intervening objects; how the spire points upward from my old playground no more, and the sky is empty! CHAPTER XI. I BEGIN LIFE ON MY OWN ACCOUNT, AND DON'T LIKE IT. I know enough of the world now, to have almost lost the capacity of being much surprised by anything; but it is matter of some surprise to me, even now, that I can have been so easily thrown away at such an age. A child of excellent abilities, and with strong powers of observation, quick, eager, delicate, and soon hurt bodily or mentally, it seems wonderful to me that nobody should have made any sign in my behalf. But none was made; and I became, at ten years old, a little labouring hind in the service of Murdstone and Grinby. Murdstone and Grinby's warehouse was at the water side. It was down in Blackfriars. Modern improvements have altered the place; but it was the last house at the bottom of a narrow street, curving down hill to the river, with some stairs at the end, where people took boat. It was a crazy old house with a wharf of its own, abutting on the water when the tide was in, and on the mud when the tide was out, and literally overrun with rats. Its panelled rooms, discolored with the dirt and smoke of a hundred years, I dare say; its decaying floors and staircase; the squeaking and scuffling of the old grey rats down in the cellars; and the dirt and rottenness of the place; are things, not of many years ago, in my mind, but of the present instant. They are all before me, just as they were in the evil hour when I went among them for the first time, with my trembling hand in Mr. Quinion's. Murdstone and Grinby's trade was among a good many kinds of people, but an important branch of it was the supply of wines and spirits to certain packet ships. I forget now where they chiefly went, but I think there were some among them that made voyages both to the East and West Indies. I know that a great many empty bottles were one of the consequences of this traffic, and that certain men and boys were employed to examine them against the light, and reject those that were flawed, and to rinse and wash them. When the empty bottles ran short, there were labels to be pasted on full ones, or corks to be fitted to them, or seals to be put upon the corks, or finished bottles to be packed in casks. All this work was my work, and of the boys employed upon it I was one. There were three or four of us, counting me. My working place was established in a corner of the warehouse, where Mr. Quinion could see me, when he chose to stand up on the bottom rail of his stool in the counting-house, and look at me through a window above the desk. Hither, on the first morning of my so auspiciously beginning life on my own account, the oldest of the regular boys was summoned to show me my business. His name was Mick Walker, and he wore a ragged apron and a paper cap. He informed me that his father was a bargeman, and walked, in a black velvet head-dress, in the Lord Mayor's Show. He also informed me that our principal associate would be another boy whom he introduced by the--to me--extraordinary name of Mealy Potatoes. I discovered, however, that this youth had not been christened by that name, but that it had been bestowed upon him in the warehouse, on account of his complexion, which was pale or mealy. Mealy's father was a waterman, who had the additional distinction of being a fireman, and was engaged as such at one of the large theatres; where some young relation of Mealy's--I think his little sister--did Imps in the Pantomimes. No words can express the secret agony of my soul as I sunk into this companionship; compared these henceforth every-day associates with those of my happier childhood--not to say with Steerforth, Traddles, and the rest of those boys; and felt my hopes of growing up to be a learned and distinguished man, crushed in my bosom. The deep remembrance of the sense I had, of being utterly without hope now; of the shame I felt in my position; of the misery it was to my young heart to believe that day by day what I had learned, and thought, and delighted in, and raised my fancy and my emulation up by, would pass away from me, little by little, never to be brought back any more; cannot be written. As often as Mick Walker went away in the course of that forenoon, I mingled my tears with the water in which I was washing the bottles; and sobbed as if there were a flaw in my own breast, and it were in danger of bursting. The counting-house clock was at half-past twelve, and there was general preparation for going to dinner, when Mr. Quinion tapped at the counting-house window, and beckoned to me to go in. I went in, and found there a stoutish, middle-aged person, in a brown surtout and black tights and shoes, with no more hair upon his head (which was a large one, and very shining) than there is upon an egg, and with a very extensive face, which he turned full upon me. His clothes were shabby, but he had an imposing shirt-collar on. He carried a jaunty sort of a stick, with a large pair of rusty tassels to it; and a quizzing-glass hung outside his coat,--for ornament, I afterwards found, as he very seldom looked through it, and couldn't see anything when he did. "This," said Mr. Quinion, in allusion to myself, "is he." "This," said the stranger, with a certain condescending roll in his voice, and a certain indescribable air of doing something genteel, which impressed me very much, "is Master Copperfield. I hope I see you well, sir?" I said I was very well, and hoped he was. I was sufficiently ill at ease, Heaven knows; but it was not in my nature to complain much at that time of my life, so I said I was very well, and hoped he was. "I am," said the stranger, "thank Heaven, quite well. I have received a letter from Mr. Murdstone, in which he mentions that he would desire me to receive into an apartment in the rear of my house, which is at present unoccupied--and is, in short, to be let as a--in short," said the stranger, with a smile and in a burst of confidence, "as a bed-room--the young beginner whom I have now the pleasure to--" and the stranger waved his hand, and settled his chin in his shirt collar. "This is Mr. Micawber," said Mr. Quinion to me. "Ahem!" said the stranger, "that is my name." "Mr. Micawber," said Mr. Quinion, "is known to Mr. Murdstone. He takes orders for us on commission, when he can get any. He has been written to by Mr. Murdstone, on the subject of your lodgings, and he will receive you as a lodger." "My address," said Mr. Micawber, "is Windsor Terrace, City Road. I--in short," said Mr. Micawber, with the same genteel air, and in another burst of confidence--"I live there." I made him a bow. "Under the impression," said Mr. Micawber, "that your peregrinations in this metropolis have not as yet been extensive, and that you might have some difficulty in penetrating the arcana of the Modern Babylon in the direction of the City Road--in short," said Mr. Micawber, in another burst of confidence, "that you might lose yourself--I shall be happy to call this evening, and install you in the knowledge of the nearest way." I thanked him with all my heart, for it was friendly in him to offer to take that trouble. "At what hour," said Mr. Micawber, "shall I--" "At about eight," said Mr. Quinion. "At about eight," said Mr. Micawber. "I beg to wish you good day, Mr. Quinion. I will intrude no longer." So he put on his hat, and went out with his cane under his arm: very upright, and humming a tune when he was clear of the counting-house. Mr. Quinion then formally engaged me to be as useful as I could in the warehouse of Murdstone and Grinby, at a salary, I think, of six shillings a week. I am not clear whether it was six or seven. I am inclined to believe, from my uncertainty on this head, that it was six at first and seven afterwards. He paid me a week down (from his own pocket, I believe), and I gave Mealy sixpence out of it to get my trunk carried to Windsor Terrace at night: it being too heavy for my strength, small as it was. I paid sixpence more for my dinner, which was a meat pie and a turn at a neighbouring pump; and passed the hour which was allowed for that meal, in walking about the streets. At the appointed time in the evening, Mr. Micawber reappeared. I washed my hands and face, to do the greater honour to his gentility, and we walked to our house, as I suppose I must now call it, together; Mr. Micawber impressing the names of streets, and the shapes of corner houses upon me, as we went along, that I might find my way back, easily, in the morning. Arrived at his house in Windsor Terrace (which I noticed was shabby like himself, but also, like himself, made all the show it could), he presented me to Mrs. Micawber, a thin and faded lady, not at all young, who was sitting in

asked

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

with them; you had better do it yourself." But here Peggotty, who had been going about from one to another in a hurried way, kissing everybody, called out from the cart, in which we all were by this time (Em'ly and I on two little chairs, side by side), that Mrs. Gummidge must do it. So Mrs. Gummidge did it; and, I am sorry to relate, cast a damp upon the festive character of our departure, by immediately bursting into tears, and sinking subdued into the arms of Ham, with the declaration that she knowed she was a burden, and had better be carried to the House at once. Which I really thought was a sensible idea, that Ham might have acted on. [Illustration: Mrs. Gummidge casts a damp on our departure.] Away we went, however, on our holiday excursion; and the first thing we did was to stop at a church, where Mr. Barkis tied the horse to some rails, and went in with Peggotty, leaving little Em'ly and me alone in the chaise. I took that occasion to put my arm round Em'ly's waist, and propose that as I was going away so very soon now, we should determine to be very affectionate to one another, and very happy, all day. Little Em'ly consenting, and allowing me to kiss her, I became desperate; informing her, I recollect, that I never could love another, and that I was prepared to shed the blood of anybody who should aspire to her affections. How merry little Em'ly made herself about it! With what a demure assumption of being immensely older and wiser than I, the fairy little woman said I was "a silly boy;" and then laughed so charmingly that I forgot the pain of being called by that disparaging name, in the pleasure of looking at her. Mr. Barkis and Peggotty were a good while in the church, but came out at last, and then we drove away into the country. As we were going along, Mr. Barkis turned to me, and said, with a wink,--by-the-by, I should hardly have thought, before, that he _could_ wink: "What name was it as I wrote up in the cart?" "Clara Peggotty," I answered. "What name would it be as I should write up now, if there was a tilt here?" "Clara Peggotty, again?" I suggested. "Clara Peggotty BARKIS!" he returned, and burst into a roar of laughter that shook the chaise. In a word, they were married, and had gone into the church for no other purpose. Peggotty was resolved that it should be quietly done; and the clerk had given her away, and there had been no witnesses of the ceremony. She was a little confused when Mr. Barkis made this abrupt announcement of their union, and could not hug me enough in token of her unimpaired affection; but she soon became herself again, and said she was very glad it was over. We drove to a little inn in a bye road, where we were expected, and where we had a very comfortable dinner, and passed the day with great satisfaction. If Peggotty had been married every day for the last ten years, she could hardly have been more at her ease about it; it made no sort of difference in her: she was just the same as ever, and went out for a stroll with little Em'ly and me before tea, while Mr. Barkis philosophically smoked his pipe, and enjoyed himself, I suppose, with the contemplation of his happiness. If so, it sharpened his appetite; for I distinctly call to mind that, although he had eaten a good deal of pork and greens at dinner, and had finished off with a fowl or two, he was obliged to have cold boiled bacon for tea, and disposed of a large quantity without any emotion. I have often thought, since, what an odd, innocent, out-of-the-way kind of wedding it must have been! We got into the chaise again soon after dark, and drove cosily back, looking up at the stars, and talking about them. I was their chief exponent, and opened Mr. Barkis's mind to an amazing extent. I told him all I knew, but he would have believed anything I might have taken it into my head to impart to him; for he had a profound veneration for my abilities, and informed his wife in my hearing, on that very occasion, that I was "a young Roeshus"--by which I think he meant, prodigy. When we had exhausted the subject of the stars, or rather when I had exhausted the mental faculties of Mr. Barkis, little Em'ly and I made a cloak of an old wrapper, and sat under it for the rest of the journey. Ah, how I loved her! What happiness (I thought) if we were married, and were going away anywhere to live among the trees and in the fields, never growing older, never growing wiser, children ever, rambling hand in hand through sunshine and among flowery meadows, laying down our heads on moss at night, in a sweet sleep of purity and peace, and buried by the birds when we were dead! Some such picture, with no real world in it, bright with the light of our innocence, and vague as the stars afar off, was in my mind all the way. I am glad to think there were two such guileless hearts at Peggotty's marriage as little Em'ly's and mine. I am glad to think the Loves and Graces took such airy forms in its homely procession. Well, we came to the old boat again in good time at night; and there Mr. and Mrs. Barkis bade us good-bye, and drove away snugly to their own home. I felt then, for the first time, that I had lost Peggotty. I should have gone to bed with a sore heart indeed under any other roof but that which sheltered little Em'ly's head. Mr. Peggotty and Ham knew what was in my thoughts as well as I did, and were ready with some supper and their hospitable faces to drive it away. Little Em'ly came and sat beside me on the locker, for the only time in all that visit; and it was altogether a wonderful close to a wonderful day. It was a night tide; and soon after we went to bed, Mr. Peggotty and Ham went out to fish. I felt very brave at being left alone in the solitary house, the protector of Em'ly and Mrs. Gummidge, and only wished that a lion or a serpent, or any ill-disposed monster, would make an attack upon us, that I might destroy him, and cover myself with glory. But as nothing of the sort happened to be walking about on Yarmouth flats that night, I provided the best substitute I could by dreaming of dragons until morning. With morning came Peggotty; who called to me, as usual, under my window as if Mr. Barkis the carrier had been from first to last a dream too. After breakfast she took me to her own home, and a beautiful little home it was. Of all the moveables in it, I must have been most impressed by a certain old bureau of some dark wood in the parlor (the tile-floored kitchen was the general sitting-room), with a retreating top which opened, let down, and became a desk, within which, was a large quarto edition of Fox's Book of Martyrs. This precious volume, of which I do not recollect one word, I immediately discovered and immediately applied myself to; and I never visited the house afterwards, but I kneeled on a chair, opened the casket where this gem was enshrined, spread my arms over the desk, and fell to devouring the book afresh. I was chiefly edified, I am afraid, by the pictures, which were numerous, and represented all kinds of dismal horrors; but the Martyrs and Peggotty's house have been inseparable in my mind ever since, and are now. I took leave of Mr. Peggotty, and Ham, and Mrs. Gummidge, and little Em'ly, that day; and passed the night at Peggotty's, in a little room in the roof (with the crocodile-book on a shelf by the bed's head) which was to be always mine, Peggotty said, and should always be kept for me in exactly the same state. "Young or old, Davy dear, as long as I am alive and have this house over my head," said Peggotty, "you shall find it as if I expected you here directly minute. I shall keep it every day, as I used to keep your old little room, my darling; and if you was to go to China, you might think of it as being kept just the same, all the time you were away." I felt the truth and constancy of my dear old nurse, with all my heart, and thanked her as well as I could. That was not very well, for she spoke to me thus, with her arms round my neck, in the morning, and I was going home in the morning, and I went home in the morning, with herself and Mr. Barkis in the cart. They left me at the gate, not easily or lightly; and it was a strange sight to me to see the cart go on, taking Peggotty away, and leaving me under the old elm-trees looking at the house, in which there was no face to look on mine with love or liking any more. And now I fell into a state of neglect, which I cannot look back upon without compassion. I fell at once into a solitary condition,--apart from all friendly notice, apart from the society of all other boys of my own age, apart from all companionship but my own spiritless thoughts,--which seems to cast its gloom upon this paper as I write. What would I have given, to have been sent to the hardest school that ever was kept!--to have been taught something, anyhow, anywhere! No such hope dawned upon me. They disliked me; and they sullenly, sternly, steadily, overlooked me. I think Mr. Murdstone's means were straitened at about this time; but it is little to the purpose. He could not bear me; and in putting me from him he tried, as I believe, to put away the notion that I had any claim upon him--and succeeded. I was not actively ill-used. I was not beaten, or starved; but the wrong that was done to me had no intervals of relenting, and was done in a systematic, passionless manner. Day after day, week after week, month after month, I was coldly neglected. I wonder sometimes, when I think of it, what they would have done if I had been taken with an illness; whether I should have lain down in my lonely room, and languished through it in my usual solitary way, or whether anybody would have helped me out. When Mr. and Miss Murdstone were at home, I took my meals with them; in their absence, I ate and drank by myself. At all times I lounged about the house and neighbourhood quite disregarded, except that they were jealous of my making any friends: thinking, perhaps, that, if I did, I might complain to some one. For this reason, though Mr. Chillip often asked me to go and see him (he was a widower, having, some years before that, lost a little small light-haired wife, whom I can just remember connecting in my own thoughts with a pale tortoise-shell cat), it was but seldom that I enjoyed the happiness of passing an afternoon in his closet of a surgery; reading some book that was new to me, with the smell of the whole pharmacopoeia coming up my nose, or pounding something in a mortar under his mild directions. For the same reason, added no doubt to the old dislike of her, I was seldom allowed to visit Peggotty. Faithful to her promise, she either came to see me, or met me somewhere near, once every week, and never empty-handed; but many and bitter were the disappointments I had, in being refused permission to pay a visit to her at her house. Some few times, however, at long intervals, I was allowed to go there; and then I found out that Mr. Barkis was something of a miser, or as Peggotty dutifully expressed it, was "a little near," and kept a heap of money in a box under his bed, which he pretended was only full of coats and trousers. In this coffer, his riches hid themselves with such a tenacious modesty, that the smallest instalments could only be tempted out by artifice; so that Peggotty had to prepare a long and elaborate scheme, a very Gunpowder Plot, for every Saturday's expenses. All this time I was so conscious of the waste of any promise I had given, and of my being utterly neglected, that I should have been perfectly miserable, I have no doubt, but for the old books. They were my only comfort; and I was as true to them as they were to me, and read them over and over I don't know how many times more. I now approach a period of my life, which I can never lose the remembrance of, while I remember any thing; and the recollection of which has often, without my invocation, come before me like a ghost, and haunted happier times. I had been out, one day, loitering somewhere, in the listless, meditative manner that my way of life engendered, when, turning the corner of a lane near our house, I came upon Mr. Murdstone walking with a gentleman. I was confused, and was going by them, when the gentleman cried: "What! Brooks!" "No, sir, David Copperfield," I said. "Don't tell me. You are Brooks," said the gentleman. "You are Brooks of Sheffield. That's your name." At these words, I observed the gentleman more attentively. His laugh coming to my remembrance too, I knew him to be Mr. Quinion, whom I had gone over to Lowestoft with Mr. Murdstone to see, before--it is no matter--I need not recall when. "And how do you get on, and where are you being educated, Brooks?" said Mr. Quinion. He had put his hand upon my shoulder, and turned me about, to walk with them. I did not know what to reply, and glanced dubiously at Mr. Murdstone. "He is at home at present," said the latter. "He is not being educated anywhere. I don't know what to do with him. He is a difficult subject." That old, double look was on me for a moment; and then his eye darkened with a frown, as it turned, in its aversion, elsewhere. "Humph!" said Mr. Quinion, looking at us both, I thought. "Fine weather!" Silence ensued, and I was considering how I could best disengage my shoulder from his hand, and go away, when he said: "I suppose you are a pretty sharp fellow still? Eh, Brooks?" "Aye! He is sharp enough," said Mr. Murdstone, impatiently. "You had better let him go. He will not thank you for troubling him." On this hint, Mr. Quinion released me, and I made the best of my way home. Looking back as I turned into the front garden, I saw Mr. Murdstone leaning against the wicket of the churchyard, and Mr. Quinion talking to him. They were both looking after me, and I felt that they were speaking of me. Mr. Quinion lay at our house that night. After breakfast, the next morning, I had put my chair away, and was going out of the room, when Mr. Murdstone called me back. He then gravely repaired to another table, where his sister sat herself at her desk. Mr. Quinion, with his hands in his pockets, stood looking out of window; and I stood looking at them all. "David," said Mr. Murdstone, "to the young this is a world for action; not for moping and droning in." --"As you do," added his sister. "Jane Murdstone, leave it to me, if you please. I say, David, to the young this is a world for action, and not for moping and droning in. It is especially so for a young boy of your disposition, which requires a great deal of correcting; and to which no greater service can be done than to force it to conform to the ways of the working world, and to bend it and break it." "For stubbornness won't do here," said his sister. "What it wants, is, to be crushed. And crushed it must be. Shall be, too!" He gave her a look, half in remonstrance, half in approval, and went on: "I suppose you know, David, that I am not rich. At any rate, you know it now. You have received some considerable education already. Education is costly; and even if it were not, and I could afford it, I am of opinion that it would not be at all advantageous to you to be kept at a school. What is before you, is a fight with the world; and the sooner you begin it, the better." I think it occurred to me that I had already begun it, in my poor way: but it occurs to me now, whether or no. "You have heard 'the counting-house' mentioned sometimes," said Mr. Murdstone. "The counting-house, sir?" I repeated. "Of Murdstone and Grinby, in the wine trade," he replied. I suppose I looked uncertain, for he went on hastily: "You have heard the 'counting-house' mentioned, or the business, or the cellars, or the wharf, or something about it." "I think I have heard the business mentioned, sir," I said, remembering what I vaguely knew of his and his sister's resources. "But I don't know when." "It does not matter when," he returned. "Mr. Quinion manages that business." I glanced at the latter deferentially as he stood looking out of window. "Mr. Quinion suggests that it gives employment to some other boys, and that he sees no reason why it shouldn't, on the same terms, give employment to you." "He having," Mr. Quinion observed in a low voice, and half turning round, "no other prospect, Murdstone." Mr. Murdstone, with an impatient, even an angry gesture, resumed, without noticing what he had said: "Those terms are, that you will earn enough for yourself to provide for your eating and drinking, and pocket-money. Your lodging (which I have arranged for) will be paid by me. So will your washing--" "--Which will be kept down to my estimate," said his sister. "Your clothes will be looked after for you, too," said Mr. Murdstone; "as you will not be able, yet awhile, to get them for yourself. So you are now going to London, David, with Mr. Quinion, to begin the world on your own account." "In short, you are provided for," observed his sister; "and will please to do your duty." Though I quite understood that the purpose of this announcement was to get rid of me, I have no distinct remembrance whether it pleased or frightened me. My impression is, that I was in a state of confusion about it, and, oscillating between the two points, touched neither. Nor had I much time for the clearing of my thoughts, as Mr. Quinion was to go upon the morrow. Behold me, on the morrow, in a much-worn little white hat, with a black crape round it for my mother, a black jacket, and a pair of hard stiff corduroy trousers--which Miss Murdstone considered the best armour for the legs in that fight with the world which was now to come off: behold me so attired, and with my little worldly all before me in a small trunk, sitting, a lone lorn child (as Mrs. Gummidge might have said), in the postchaise that was carrying Mr. Quinion to the London coach at Yarmouth! See, how our house and church are lessening in the distance; how the grave beneath the tree is blotted out by intervening objects; how the spire points upward from my old playground no more, and the sky is empty! CHAPTER XI. I BEGIN LIFE ON MY OWN ACCOUNT, AND DON'T LIKE IT. I know enough of the world now, to have almost lost the capacity of being much surprised by anything; but it is matter of some surprise to me, even now, that I can have been so easily thrown away at such an age. A child of excellent abilities, and with strong powers of observation, quick, eager, delicate, and soon hurt bodily or mentally, it seems wonderful to me that nobody should have made any sign in my behalf. But none was made; and I became, at ten years old, a little labouring hind in the service of Murdstone and Grinby. Murdstone and Grinby's warehouse was at the water side. It was down in Blackfriars. Modern improvements have altered the place; but it was the last house at the bottom of a narrow street, curving down hill to the river, with some stairs at the end, where people took boat. It was a crazy old house with a wharf of its own, abutting on the water when the tide was in, and on the mud when the tide was out, and literally overrun with rats. Its panelled rooms, discolored with the dirt and smoke of a hundred years, I dare say; its decaying floors and staircase; the squeaking and scuffling of the old grey rats down in the cellars; and the dirt and rottenness of the place; are things, not of many years ago, in my mind, but of the present instant. They are all before me, just as they were in the evil hour when I went among them for the first time, with my trembling hand in Mr. Quinion's. Murdstone and Grinby's trade was among a good many kinds of people, but an important branch of it was the supply of wines and spirits to certain packet ships. I forget now where they chiefly went, but I think there were some among them that made voyages both to the East and West Indies. I know that a great many empty bottles were one of the consequences of this traffic, and that certain men and boys were employed to examine them against the light, and reject those that were flawed, and to rinse and wash them. When the empty bottles ran short, there were labels to be pasted on full ones, or corks to be fitted to them, or seals to be put upon the corks, or finished bottles to be packed in casks. All this work was my work, and of the boys employed upon it I was one. There were three or four of us, counting me. My working place was established in a corner of the warehouse, where Mr. Quinion could see me, when he chose to stand up on the bottom rail of his stool in the counting-house, and look at me through a window above the desk. Hither, on the first morning of my so auspiciously beginning life on my own account, the oldest of the regular boys was summoned to show me my business. His name was Mick Walker, and he wore a ragged apron and a paper cap. He informed me that his father was a bargeman, and walked, in a black velvet head-dress, in the Lord Mayor's Show. He also informed me that our principal associate would be another boy whom he introduced by the--to me--extraordinary name of Mealy Potatoes. I discovered, however, that this youth had not been christened by that name, but that it had been bestowed upon him in the warehouse, on account of his complexion, which was pale or mealy. Mealy's father was a waterman, who had the additional distinction of being a fireman, and was engaged as such at one of the large theatres; where some young relation of Mealy's--I think his little sister--did Imps in the Pantomimes. No words can express the secret agony of my soul as I sunk into this companionship; compared these henceforth every-day associates with those of my happier childhood--not to say with Steerforth, Traddles, and the rest of those boys; and felt my hopes of growing up to be a learned and distinguished man, crushed in my bosom. The deep remembrance of the sense I had, of being utterly without hope now; of the shame I felt in my position; of the misery it was to my young heart to believe that day by day what I had learned, and thought, and delighted in, and raised my fancy and my emulation up by, would pass away from me, little by little, never to be brought back any more; cannot be written. As often as Mick Walker went away in the course of that forenoon, I mingled my tears with the water in which I was washing the bottles; and sobbed as if there were a flaw in my own breast, and it were in danger of bursting. The counting-house clock was at half-past twelve, and there was general preparation for going to dinner, when Mr. Quinion tapped at the counting-house window, and beckoned to me to go in. I went in, and found there a stoutish, middle-aged person, in a brown surtout and black tights and shoes, with no more hair upon his head (which was a large one, and very shining) than there is upon an egg, and with a very extensive face, which he turned full upon me. His clothes were shabby, but he had an imposing shirt-collar on. He carried a jaunty sort of a stick, with a large pair of rusty tassels to it; and a quizzing-glass hung outside his coat,--for ornament, I afterwards found, as he very seldom looked through it, and couldn't see anything when he did. "This," said Mr. Quinion, in allusion to myself, "is he." "This," said the stranger, with a certain condescending roll in his voice, and a certain indescribable air of doing something genteel, which impressed me very much, "is Master Copperfield. I hope I see you well, sir?" I said I was very well, and hoped he was. I was sufficiently ill at ease, Heaven knows; but it was not in my nature to complain much at that time of my life, so I said I was very well, and hoped he was. "I am," said the stranger, "thank Heaven, quite well. I have received a letter from Mr. Murdstone, in which he mentions that he would desire me to receive into an apartment in the rear of my house, which is at present unoccupied--and is, in short, to be let as a--in short," said the stranger, with a smile and in a burst of confidence, "as a bed-room--the young beginner whom I have now the pleasure to--" and the stranger waved his hand, and settled his chin in his shirt collar. "This is Mr. Micawber," said Mr. Quinion to me. "Ahem!" said the stranger, "that is my name." "Mr. Micawber," said Mr. Quinion, "is known to Mr. Murdstone. He takes orders for us on commission, when he can get any. He has been written to by Mr. Murdstone, on the subject of your lodgings, and he will receive you as a lodger." "My address," said Mr. Micawber, "is Windsor Terrace, City Road. I--in short," said Mr. Micawber, with the same genteel air, and in another burst of confidence--"I live there." I made him a bow. "Under the impression," said Mr. Micawber, "that your peregrinations in this metropolis have not as yet been extensive, and that you might have some difficulty in penetrating the arcana of the Modern Babylon in the direction of the City Road--in short," said Mr. Micawber, in another burst of confidence, "that you might lose yourself--I shall be happy to call this evening, and install you in the knowledge of the nearest way." I thanked him with all my heart, for it was friendly in him to offer to take that trouble. "At what hour," said Mr. Micawber, "shall I--" "At about eight," said Mr. Quinion. "At about eight," said Mr. Micawber. "I beg to wish you good day, Mr. Quinion. I will intrude no longer." So he put on his hat, and went out with his cane under his arm: very upright, and humming a tune when he was clear of the counting-house. Mr. Quinion then formally engaged me to be as useful as I could in the warehouse of Murdstone and Grinby, at a salary, I think, of six shillings a week. I am not clear whether it was six or seven. I am inclined to believe, from my uncertainty on this head, that it was six at first and seven afterwards. He paid me a week down (from his own pocket, I believe), and I gave Mealy sixpence out of it to get my trunk carried to Windsor Terrace at night: it being too heavy for my strength, small as it was. I paid sixpence more for my dinner, which was a meat pie and a turn at a neighbouring pump; and passed the hour which was allowed for that meal, in walking about the streets. At the appointed time in the evening, Mr. Micawber reappeared. I washed my hands and face, to do the greater honour to his gentility, and we walked to our house, as I suppose I must now call it, together; Mr. Micawber impressing the names of streets, and the shapes of corner houses upon me, as we went along, that I might find my way back, easily, in the morning. Arrived at his house in Windsor Terrace (which I noticed was shabby like himself, but also, like himself, made all the show it could), he presented me to Mrs. Micawber, a thin and faded lady, not at all young, who was sitting in

trees

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

with them; you had better do it yourself." But here Peggotty, who had been going about from one to another in a hurried way, kissing everybody, called out from the cart, in which we all were by this time (Em'ly and I on two little chairs, side by side), that Mrs. Gummidge must do it. So Mrs. Gummidge did it; and, I am sorry to relate, cast a damp upon the festive character of our departure, by immediately bursting into tears, and sinking subdued into the arms of Ham, with the declaration that she knowed she was a burden, and had better be carried to the House at once. Which I really thought was a sensible idea, that Ham might have acted on. [Illustration: Mrs. Gummidge casts a damp on our departure.] Away we went, however, on our holiday excursion; and the first thing we did was to stop at a church, where Mr. Barkis tied the horse to some rails, and went in with Peggotty, leaving little Em'ly and me alone in the chaise. I took that occasion to put my arm round Em'ly's waist, and propose that as I was going away so very soon now, we should determine to be very affectionate to one another, and very happy, all day. Little Em'ly consenting, and allowing me to kiss her, I became desperate; informing her, I recollect, that I never could love another, and that I was prepared to shed the blood of anybody who should aspire to her affections. How merry little Em'ly made herself about it! With what a demure assumption of being immensely older and wiser than I, the fairy little woman said I was "a silly boy;" and then laughed so charmingly that I forgot the pain of being called by that disparaging name, in the pleasure of looking at her. Mr. Barkis and Peggotty were a good while in the church, but came out at last, and then we drove away into the country. As we were going along, Mr. Barkis turned to me, and said, with a wink,--by-the-by, I should hardly have thought, before, that he _could_ wink: "What name was it as I wrote up in the cart?" "Clara Peggotty," I answered. "What name would it be as I should write up now, if there was a tilt here?" "Clara Peggotty, again?" I suggested. "Clara Peggotty BARKIS!" he returned, and burst into a roar of laughter that shook the chaise. In a word, they were married, and had gone into the church for no other purpose. Peggotty was resolved that it should be quietly done; and the clerk had given her away, and there had been no witnesses of the ceremony. She was a little confused when Mr. Barkis made this abrupt announcement of their union, and could not hug me enough in token of her unimpaired affection; but she soon became herself again, and said she was very glad it was over. We drove to a little inn in a bye road, where we were expected, and where we had a very comfortable dinner, and passed the day with great satisfaction. If Peggotty had been married every day for the last ten years, she could hardly have been more at her ease about it; it made no sort of difference in her: she was just the same as ever, and went out for a stroll with little Em'ly and me before tea, while Mr. Barkis philosophically smoked his pipe, and enjoyed himself, I suppose, with the contemplation of his happiness. If so, it sharpened his appetite; for I distinctly call to mind that, although he had eaten a good deal of pork and greens at dinner, and had finished off with a fowl or two, he was obliged to have cold boiled bacon for tea, and disposed of a large quantity without any emotion. I have often thought, since, what an odd, innocent, out-of-the-way kind of wedding it must have been! We got into the chaise again soon after dark, and drove cosily back, looking up at the stars, and talking about them. I was their chief exponent, and opened Mr. Barkis's mind to an amazing extent. I told him all I knew, but he would have believed anything I might have taken it into my head to impart to him; for he had a profound veneration for my abilities, and informed his wife in my hearing, on that very occasion, that I was "a young Roeshus"--by which I think he meant, prodigy. When we had exhausted the subject of the stars, or rather when I had exhausted the mental faculties of Mr. Barkis, little Em'ly and I made a cloak of an old wrapper, and sat under it for the rest of the journey. Ah, how I loved her! What happiness (I thought) if we were married, and were going away anywhere to live among the trees and in the fields, never growing older, never growing wiser, children ever, rambling hand in hand through sunshine and among flowery meadows, laying down our heads on moss at night, in a sweet sleep of purity and peace, and buried by the birds when we were dead! Some such picture, with no real world in it, bright with the light of our innocence, and vague as the stars afar off, was in my mind all the way. I am glad to think there were two such guileless hearts at Peggotty's marriage as little Em'ly's and mine. I am glad to think the Loves and Graces took such airy forms in its homely procession. Well, we came to the old boat again in good time at night; and there Mr. and Mrs. Barkis bade us good-bye, and drove away snugly to their own home. I felt then, for the first time, that I had lost Peggotty. I should have gone to bed with a sore heart indeed under any other roof but that which sheltered little Em'ly's head. Mr. Peggotty and Ham knew what was in my thoughts as well as I did, and were ready with some supper and their hospitable faces to drive it away. Little Em'ly came and sat beside me on the locker, for the only time in all that visit; and it was altogether a wonderful close to a wonderful day. It was a night tide; and soon after we went to bed, Mr. Peggotty and Ham went out to fish. I felt very brave at being left alone in the solitary house, the protector of Em'ly and Mrs. Gummidge, and only wished that a lion or a serpent, or any ill-disposed monster, would make an attack upon us, that I might destroy him, and cover myself with glory. But as nothing of the sort happened to be walking about on Yarmouth flats that night, I provided the best substitute I could by dreaming of dragons until morning. With morning came Peggotty; who called to me, as usual, under my window as if Mr. Barkis the carrier had been from first to last a dream too. After breakfast she took me to her own home, and a beautiful little home it was. Of all the moveables in it, I must have been most impressed by a certain old bureau of some dark wood in the parlor (the tile-floored kitchen was the general sitting-room), with a retreating top which opened, let down, and became a desk, within which, was a large quarto edition of Fox's Book of Martyrs. This precious volume, of which I do not recollect one word, I immediately discovered and immediately applied myself to; and I never visited the house afterwards, but I kneeled on a chair, opened the casket where this gem was enshrined, spread my arms over the desk, and fell to devouring the book afresh. I was chiefly edified, I am afraid, by the pictures, which were numerous, and represented all kinds of dismal horrors; but the Martyrs and Peggotty's house have been inseparable in my mind ever since, and are now. I took leave of Mr. Peggotty, and Ham, and Mrs. Gummidge, and little Em'ly, that day; and passed the night at Peggotty's, in a little room in the roof (with the crocodile-book on a shelf by the bed's head) which was to be always mine, Peggotty said, and should always be kept for me in exactly the same state. "Young or old, Davy dear, as long as I am alive and have this house over my head," said Peggotty, "you shall find it as if I expected you here directly minute. I shall keep it every day, as I used to keep your old little room, my darling; and if you was to go to China, you might think of it as being kept just the same, all the time you were away." I felt the truth and constancy of my dear old nurse, with all my heart, and thanked her as well as I could. That was not very well, for she spoke to me thus, with her arms round my neck, in the morning, and I was going home in the morning, and I went home in the morning, with herself and Mr. Barkis in the cart. They left me at the gate, not easily or lightly; and it was a strange sight to me to see the cart go on, taking Peggotty away, and leaving me under the old elm-trees looking at the house, in which there was no face to look on mine with love or liking any more. And now I fell into a state of neglect, which I cannot look back upon without compassion. I fell at once into a solitary condition,--apart from all friendly notice, apart from the society of all other boys of my own age, apart from all companionship but my own spiritless thoughts,--which seems to cast its gloom upon this paper as I write. What would I have given, to have been sent to the hardest school that ever was kept!--to have been taught something, anyhow, anywhere! No such hope dawned upon me. They disliked me; and they sullenly, sternly, steadily, overlooked me. I think Mr. Murdstone's means were straitened at about this time; but it is little to the purpose. He could not bear me; and in putting me from him he tried, as I believe, to put away the notion that I had any claim upon him--and succeeded. I was not actively ill-used. I was not beaten, or starved; but the wrong that was done to me had no intervals of relenting, and was done in a systematic, passionless manner. Day after day, week after week, month after month, I was coldly neglected. I wonder sometimes, when I think of it, what they would have done if I had been taken with an illness; whether I should have lain down in my lonely room, and languished through it in my usual solitary way, or whether anybody would have helped me out. When Mr. and Miss Murdstone were at home, I took my meals with them; in their absence, I ate and drank by myself. At all times I lounged about the house and neighbourhood quite disregarded, except that they were jealous of my making any friends: thinking, perhaps, that, if I did, I might complain to some one. For this reason, though Mr. Chillip often asked me to go and see him (he was a widower, having, some years before that, lost a little small light-haired wife, whom I can just remember connecting in my own thoughts with a pale tortoise-shell cat), it was but seldom that I enjoyed the happiness of passing an afternoon in his closet of a surgery; reading some book that was new to me, with the smell of the whole pharmacopoeia coming up my nose, or pounding something in a mortar under his mild directions. For the same reason, added no doubt to the old dislike of her, I was seldom allowed to visit Peggotty. Faithful to her promise, she either came to see me, or met me somewhere near, once every week, and never empty-handed; but many and bitter were the disappointments I had, in being refused permission to pay a visit to her at her house. Some few times, however, at long intervals, I was allowed to go there; and then I found out that Mr. Barkis was something of a miser, or as Peggotty dutifully expressed it, was "a little near," and kept a heap of money in a box under his bed, which he pretended was only full of coats and trousers. In this coffer, his riches hid themselves with such a tenacious modesty, that the smallest instalments could only be tempted out by artifice; so that Peggotty had to prepare a long and elaborate scheme, a very Gunpowder Plot, for every Saturday's expenses. All this time I was so conscious of the waste of any promise I had given, and of my being utterly neglected, that I should have been perfectly miserable, I have no doubt, but for the old books. They were my only comfort; and I was as true to them as they were to me, and read them over and over I don't know how many times more. I now approach a period of my life, which I can never lose the remembrance of, while I remember any thing; and the recollection of which has often, without my invocation, come before me like a ghost, and haunted happier times. I had been out, one day, loitering somewhere, in the listless, meditative manner that my way of life engendered, when, turning the corner of a lane near our house, I came upon Mr. Murdstone walking with a gentleman. I was confused, and was going by them, when the gentleman cried: "What! Brooks!" "No, sir, David Copperfield," I said. "Don't tell me. You are Brooks," said the gentleman. "You are Brooks of Sheffield. That's your name." At these words, I observed the gentleman more attentively. His laugh coming to my remembrance too, I knew him to be Mr. Quinion, whom I had gone over to Lowestoft with Mr. Murdstone to see, before--it is no matter--I need not recall when. "And how do you get on, and where are you being educated, Brooks?" said Mr. Quinion. He had put his hand upon my shoulder, and turned me about, to walk with them. I did not know what to reply, and glanced dubiously at Mr. Murdstone. "He is at home at present," said the latter. "He is not being educated anywhere. I don't know what to do with him. He is a difficult subject." That old, double look was on me for a moment; and then his eye darkened with a frown, as it turned, in its aversion, elsewhere. "Humph!" said Mr. Quinion, looking at us both, I thought. "Fine weather!" Silence ensued, and I was considering how I could best disengage my shoulder from his hand, and go away, when he said: "I suppose you are a pretty sharp fellow still? Eh, Brooks?" "Aye! He is sharp enough," said Mr. Murdstone, impatiently. "You had better let him go. He will not thank you for troubling him." On this hint, Mr. Quinion released me, and I made the best of my way home. Looking back as I turned into the front garden, I saw Mr. Murdstone leaning against the wicket of the churchyard, and Mr. Quinion talking to him. They were both looking after me, and I felt that they were speaking of me. Mr. Quinion lay at our house that night. After breakfast, the next morning, I had put my chair away, and was going out of the room, when Mr. Murdstone called me back. He then gravely repaired to another table, where his sister sat herself at her desk. Mr. Quinion, with his hands in his pockets, stood looking out of window; and I stood looking at them all. "David," said Mr. Murdstone, "to the young this is a world for action; not for moping and droning in." --"As you do," added his sister. "Jane Murdstone, leave it to me, if you please. I say, David, to the young this is a world for action, and not for moping and droning in. It is especially so for a young boy of your disposition, which requires a great deal of correcting; and to which no greater service can be done than to force it to conform to the ways of the working world, and to bend it and break it." "For stubbornness won't do here," said his sister. "What it wants, is, to be crushed. And crushed it must be. Shall be, too!" He gave her a look, half in remonstrance, half in approval, and went on: "I suppose you know, David, that I am not rich. At any rate, you know it now. You have received some considerable education already. Education is costly; and even if it were not, and I could afford it, I am of opinion that it would not be at all advantageous to you to be kept at a school. What is before you, is a fight with the world; and the sooner you begin it, the better." I think it occurred to me that I had already begun it, in my poor way: but it occurs to me now, whether or no. "You have heard 'the counting-house' mentioned sometimes," said Mr. Murdstone. "The counting-house, sir?" I repeated. "Of Murdstone and Grinby, in the wine trade," he replied. I suppose I looked uncertain, for he went on hastily: "You have heard the 'counting-house' mentioned, or the business, or the cellars, or the wharf, or something about it." "I think I have heard the business mentioned, sir," I said, remembering what I vaguely knew of his and his sister's resources. "But I don't know when." "It does not matter when," he returned. "Mr. Quinion manages that business." I glanced at the latter deferentially as he stood looking out of window. "Mr. Quinion suggests that it gives employment to some other boys, and that he sees no reason why it shouldn't, on the same terms, give employment to you." "He having," Mr. Quinion observed in a low voice, and half turning round, "no other prospect, Murdstone." Mr. Murdstone, with an impatient, even an angry gesture, resumed, without noticing what he had said: "Those terms are, that you will earn enough for yourself to provide for your eating and drinking, and pocket-money. Your lodging (which I have arranged for) will be paid by me. So will your washing--" "--Which will be kept down to my estimate," said his sister. "Your clothes will be looked after for you, too," said Mr. Murdstone; "as you will not be able, yet awhile, to get them for yourself. So you are now going to London, David, with Mr. Quinion, to begin the world on your own account." "In short, you are provided for," observed his sister; "and will please to do your duty." Though I quite understood that the purpose of this announcement was to get rid of me, I have no distinct remembrance whether it pleased or frightened me. My impression is, that I was in a state of confusion about it, and, oscillating between the two points, touched neither. Nor had I much time for the clearing of my thoughts, as Mr. Quinion was to go upon the morrow. Behold me, on the morrow, in a much-worn little white hat, with a black crape round it for my mother, a black jacket, and a pair of hard stiff corduroy trousers--which Miss Murdstone considered the best armour for the legs in that fight with the world which was now to come off: behold me so attired, and with my little worldly all before me in a small trunk, sitting, a lone lorn child (as Mrs. Gummidge might have said), in the postchaise that was carrying Mr. Quinion to the London coach at Yarmouth! See, how our house and church are lessening in the distance; how the grave beneath the tree is blotted out by intervening objects; how the spire points upward from my old playground no more, and the sky is empty! CHAPTER XI. I BEGIN LIFE ON MY OWN ACCOUNT, AND DON'T LIKE IT. I know enough of the world now, to have almost lost the capacity of being much surprised by anything; but it is matter of some surprise to me, even now, that I can have been so easily thrown away at such an age. A child of excellent abilities, and with strong powers of observation, quick, eager, delicate, and soon hurt bodily or mentally, it seems wonderful to me that nobody should have made any sign in my behalf. But none was made; and I became, at ten years old, a little labouring hind in the service of Murdstone and Grinby. Murdstone and Grinby's warehouse was at the water side. It was down in Blackfriars. Modern improvements have altered the place; but it was the last house at the bottom of a narrow street, curving down hill to the river, with some stairs at the end, where people took boat. It was a crazy old house with a wharf of its own, abutting on the water when the tide was in, and on the mud when the tide was out, and literally overrun with rats. Its panelled rooms, discolored with the dirt and smoke of a hundred years, I dare say; its decaying floors and staircase; the squeaking and scuffling of the old grey rats down in the cellars; and the dirt and rottenness of the place; are things, not of many years ago, in my mind, but of the present instant. They are all before me, just as they were in the evil hour when I went among them for the first time, with my trembling hand in Mr. Quinion's. Murdstone and Grinby's trade was among a good many kinds of people, but an important branch of it was the supply of wines and spirits to certain packet ships. I forget now where they chiefly went, but I think there were some among them that made voyages both to the East and West Indies. I know that a great many empty bottles were one of the consequences of this traffic, and that certain men and boys were employed to examine them against the light, and reject those that were flawed, and to rinse and wash them. When the empty bottles ran short, there were labels to be pasted on full ones, or corks to be fitted to them, or seals to be put upon the corks, or finished bottles to be packed in casks. All this work was my work, and of the boys employed upon it I was one. There were three or four of us, counting me. My working place was established in a corner of the warehouse, where Mr. Quinion could see me, when he chose to stand up on the bottom rail of his stool in the counting-house, and look at me through a window above the desk. Hither, on the first morning of my so auspiciously beginning life on my own account, the oldest of the regular boys was summoned to show me my business. His name was Mick Walker, and he wore a ragged apron and a paper cap. He informed me that his father was a bargeman, and walked, in a black velvet head-dress, in the Lord Mayor's Show. He also informed me that our principal associate would be another boy whom he introduced by the--to me--extraordinary name of Mealy Potatoes. I discovered, however, that this youth had not been christened by that name, but that it had been bestowed upon him in the warehouse, on account of his complexion, which was pale or mealy. Mealy's father was a waterman, who had the additional distinction of being a fireman, and was engaged as such at one of the large theatres; where some young relation of Mealy's--I think his little sister--did Imps in the Pantomimes. No words can express the secret agony of my soul as I sunk into this companionship; compared these henceforth every-day associates with those of my happier childhood--not to say with Steerforth, Traddles, and the rest of those boys; and felt my hopes of growing up to be a learned and distinguished man, crushed in my bosom. The deep remembrance of the sense I had, of being utterly without hope now; of the shame I felt in my position; of the misery it was to my young heart to believe that day by day what I had learned, and thought, and delighted in, and raised my fancy and my emulation up by, would pass away from me, little by little, never to be brought back any more; cannot be written. As often as Mick Walker went away in the course of that forenoon, I mingled my tears with the water in which I was washing the bottles; and sobbed as if there were a flaw in my own breast, and it were in danger of bursting. The counting-house clock was at half-past twelve, and there was general preparation for going to dinner, when Mr. Quinion tapped at the counting-house window, and beckoned to me to go in. I went in, and found there a stoutish, middle-aged person, in a brown surtout and black tights and shoes, with no more hair upon his head (which was a large one, and very shining) than there is upon an egg, and with a very extensive face, which he turned full upon me. His clothes were shabby, but he had an imposing shirt-collar on. He carried a jaunty sort of a stick, with a large pair of rusty tassels to it; and a quizzing-glass hung outside his coat,--for ornament, I afterwards found, as he very seldom looked through it, and couldn't see anything when he did. "This," said Mr. Quinion, in allusion to myself, "is he." "This," said the stranger, with a certain condescending roll in his voice, and a certain indescribable air of doing something genteel, which impressed me very much, "is Master Copperfield. I hope I see you well, sir?" I said I was very well, and hoped he was. I was sufficiently ill at ease, Heaven knows; but it was not in my nature to complain much at that time of my life, so I said I was very well, and hoped he was. "I am," said the stranger, "thank Heaven, quite well. I have received a letter from Mr. Murdstone, in which he mentions that he would desire me to receive into an apartment in the rear of my house, which is at present unoccupied--and is, in short, to be let as a--in short," said the stranger, with a smile and in a burst of confidence, "as a bed-room--the young beginner whom I have now the pleasure to--" and the stranger waved his hand, and settled his chin in his shirt collar. "This is Mr. Micawber," said Mr. Quinion to me. "Ahem!" said the stranger, "that is my name." "Mr. Micawber," said Mr. Quinion, "is known to Mr. Murdstone. He takes orders for us on commission, when he can get any. He has been written to by Mr. Murdstone, on the subject of your lodgings, and he will receive you as a lodger." "My address," said Mr. Micawber, "is Windsor Terrace, City Road. I--in short," said Mr. Micawber, with the same genteel air, and in another burst of confidence--"I live there." I made him a bow. "Under the impression," said Mr. Micawber, "that your peregrinations in this metropolis have not as yet been extensive, and that you might have some difficulty in penetrating the arcana of the Modern Babylon in the direction of the City Road--in short," said Mr. Micawber, in another burst of confidence, "that you might lose yourself--I shall be happy to call this evening, and install you in the knowledge of the nearest way." I thanked him with all my heart, for it was friendly in him to offer to take that trouble. "At what hour," said Mr. Micawber, "shall I--" "At about eight," said Mr. Quinion. "At about eight," said Mr. Micawber. "I beg to wish you good day, Mr. Quinion. I will intrude no longer." So he put on his hat, and went out with his cane under his arm: very upright, and humming a tune when he was clear of the counting-house. Mr. Quinion then formally engaged me to be as useful as I could in the warehouse of Murdstone and Grinby, at a salary, I think, of six shillings a week. I am not clear whether it was six or seven. I am inclined to believe, from my uncertainty on this head, that it was six at first and seven afterwards. He paid me a week down (from his own pocket, I believe), and I gave Mealy sixpence out of it to get my trunk carried to Windsor Terrace at night: it being too heavy for my strength, small as it was. I paid sixpence more for my dinner, which was a meat pie and a turn at a neighbouring pump; and passed the hour which was allowed for that meal, in walking about the streets. At the appointed time in the evening, Mr. Micawber reappeared. I washed my hands and face, to do the greater honour to his gentility, and we walked to our house, as I suppose I must now call it, together; Mr. Micawber impressing the names of streets, and the shapes of corner houses upon me, as we went along, that I might find my way back, easily, in the morning. Arrived at his house in Windsor Terrace (which I noticed was shabby like himself, but also, like himself, made all the show it could), he presented me to Mrs. Micawber, a thin and faded lady, not at all young, who was sitting in

stroll

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

with them; you had better do it yourself." But here Peggotty, who had been going about from one to another in a hurried way, kissing everybody, called out from the cart, in which we all were by this time (Em'ly and I on two little chairs, side by side), that Mrs. Gummidge must do it. So Mrs. Gummidge did it; and, I am sorry to relate, cast a damp upon the festive character of our departure, by immediately bursting into tears, and sinking subdued into the arms of Ham, with the declaration that she knowed she was a burden, and had better be carried to the House at once. Which I really thought was a sensible idea, that Ham might have acted on. [Illustration: Mrs. Gummidge casts a damp on our departure.] Away we went, however, on our holiday excursion; and the first thing we did was to stop at a church, where Mr. Barkis tied the horse to some rails, and went in with Peggotty, leaving little Em'ly and me alone in the chaise. I took that occasion to put my arm round Em'ly's waist, and propose that as I was going away so very soon now, we should determine to be very affectionate to one another, and very happy, all day. Little Em'ly consenting, and allowing me to kiss her, I became desperate; informing her, I recollect, that I never could love another, and that I was prepared to shed the blood of anybody who should aspire to her affections. How merry little Em'ly made herself about it! With what a demure assumption of being immensely older and wiser than I, the fairy little woman said I was "a silly boy;" and then laughed so charmingly that I forgot the pain of being called by that disparaging name, in the pleasure of looking at her. Mr. Barkis and Peggotty were a good while in the church, but came out at last, and then we drove away into the country. As we were going along, Mr. Barkis turned to me, and said, with a wink,--by-the-by, I should hardly have thought, before, that he _could_ wink: "What name was it as I wrote up in the cart?" "Clara Peggotty," I answered. "What name would it be as I should write up now, if there was a tilt here?" "Clara Peggotty, again?" I suggested. "Clara Peggotty BARKIS!" he returned, and burst into a roar of laughter that shook the chaise. In a word, they were married, and had gone into the church for no other purpose. Peggotty was resolved that it should be quietly done; and the clerk had given her away, and there had been no witnesses of the ceremony. She was a little confused when Mr. Barkis made this abrupt announcement of their union, and could not hug me enough in token of her unimpaired affection; but she soon became herself again, and said she was very glad it was over. We drove to a little inn in a bye road, where we were expected, and where we had a very comfortable dinner, and passed the day with great satisfaction. If Peggotty had been married every day for the last ten years, she could hardly have been more at her ease about it; it made no sort of difference in her: she was just the same as ever, and went out for a stroll with little Em'ly and me before tea, while Mr. Barkis philosophically smoked his pipe, and enjoyed himself, I suppose, with the contemplation of his happiness. If so, it sharpened his appetite; for I distinctly call to mind that, although he had eaten a good deal of pork and greens at dinner, and had finished off with a fowl or two, he was obliged to have cold boiled bacon for tea, and disposed of a large quantity without any emotion. I have often thought, since, what an odd, innocent, out-of-the-way kind of wedding it must have been! We got into the chaise again soon after dark, and drove cosily back, looking up at the stars, and talking about them. I was their chief exponent, and opened Mr. Barkis's mind to an amazing extent. I told him all I knew, but he would have believed anything I might have taken it into my head to impart to him; for he had a profound veneration for my abilities, and informed his wife in my hearing, on that very occasion, that I was "a young Roeshus"--by which I think he meant, prodigy. When we had exhausted the subject of the stars, or rather when I had exhausted the mental faculties of Mr. Barkis, little Em'ly and I made a cloak of an old wrapper, and sat under it for the rest of the journey. Ah, how I loved her! What happiness (I thought) if we were married, and were going away anywhere to live among the trees and in the fields, never growing older, never growing wiser, children ever, rambling hand in hand through sunshine and among flowery meadows, laying down our heads on moss at night, in a sweet sleep of purity and peace, and buried by the birds when we were dead! Some such picture, with no real world in it, bright with the light of our innocence, and vague as the stars afar off, was in my mind all the way. I am glad to think there were two such guileless hearts at Peggotty's marriage as little Em'ly's and mine. I am glad to think the Loves and Graces took such airy forms in its homely procession. Well, we came to the old boat again in good time at night; and there Mr. and Mrs. Barkis bade us good-bye, and drove away snugly to their own home. I felt then, for the first time, that I had lost Peggotty. I should have gone to bed with a sore heart indeed under any other roof but that which sheltered little Em'ly's head. Mr. Peggotty and Ham knew what was in my thoughts as well as I did, and were ready with some supper and their hospitable faces to drive it away. Little Em'ly came and sat beside me on the locker, for the only time in all that visit; and it was altogether a wonderful close to a wonderful day. It was a night tide; and soon after we went to bed, Mr. Peggotty and Ham went out to fish. I felt very brave at being left alone in the solitary house, the protector of Em'ly and Mrs. Gummidge, and only wished that a lion or a serpent, or any ill-disposed monster, would make an attack upon us, that I might destroy him, and cover myself with glory. But as nothing of the sort happened to be walking about on Yarmouth flats that night, I provided the best substitute I could by dreaming of dragons until morning. With morning came Peggotty; who called to me, as usual, under my window as if Mr. Barkis the carrier had been from first to last a dream too. After breakfast she took me to her own home, and a beautiful little home it was. Of all the moveables in it, I must have been most impressed by a certain old bureau of some dark wood in the parlor (the tile-floored kitchen was the general sitting-room), with a retreating top which opened, let down, and became a desk, within which, was a large quarto edition of Fox's Book of Martyrs. This precious volume, of which I do not recollect one word, I immediately discovered and immediately applied myself to; and I never visited the house afterwards, but I kneeled on a chair, opened the casket where this gem was enshrined, spread my arms over the desk, and fell to devouring the book afresh. I was chiefly edified, I am afraid, by the pictures, which were numerous, and represented all kinds of dismal horrors; but the Martyrs and Peggotty's house have been inseparable in my mind ever since, and are now. I took leave of Mr. Peggotty, and Ham, and Mrs. Gummidge, and little Em'ly, that day; and passed the night at Peggotty's, in a little room in the roof (with the crocodile-book on a shelf by the bed's head) which was to be always mine, Peggotty said, and should always be kept for me in exactly the same state. "Young or old, Davy dear, as long as I am alive and have this house over my head," said Peggotty, "you shall find it as if I expected you here directly minute. I shall keep it every day, as I used to keep your old little room, my darling; and if you was to go to China, you might think of it as being kept just the same, all the time you were away." I felt the truth and constancy of my dear old nurse, with all my heart, and thanked her as well as I could. That was not very well, for she spoke to me thus, with her arms round my neck, in the morning, and I was going home in the morning, and I went home in the morning, with herself and Mr. Barkis in the cart. They left me at the gate, not easily or lightly; and it was a strange sight to me to see the cart go on, taking Peggotty away, and leaving me under the old elm-trees looking at the house, in which there was no face to look on mine with love or liking any more. And now I fell into a state of neglect, which I cannot look back upon without compassion. I fell at once into a solitary condition,--apart from all friendly notice, apart from the society of all other boys of my own age, apart from all companionship but my own spiritless thoughts,--which seems to cast its gloom upon this paper as I write. What would I have given, to have been sent to the hardest school that ever was kept!--to have been taught something, anyhow, anywhere! No such hope dawned upon me. They disliked me; and they sullenly, sternly, steadily, overlooked me. I think Mr. Murdstone's means were straitened at about this time; but it is little to the purpose. He could not bear me; and in putting me from him he tried, as I believe, to put away the notion that I had any claim upon him--and succeeded. I was not actively ill-used. I was not beaten, or starved; but the wrong that was done to me had no intervals of relenting, and was done in a systematic, passionless manner. Day after day, week after week, month after month, I was coldly neglected. I wonder sometimes, when I think of it, what they would have done if I had been taken with an illness; whether I should have lain down in my lonely room, and languished through it in my usual solitary way, or whether anybody would have helped me out. When Mr. and Miss Murdstone were at home, I took my meals with them; in their absence, I ate and drank by myself. At all times I lounged about the house and neighbourhood quite disregarded, except that they were jealous of my making any friends: thinking, perhaps, that, if I did, I might complain to some one. For this reason, though Mr. Chillip often asked me to go and see him (he was a widower, having, some years before that, lost a little small light-haired wife, whom I can just remember connecting in my own thoughts with a pale tortoise-shell cat), it was but seldom that I enjoyed the happiness of passing an afternoon in his closet of a surgery; reading some book that was new to me, with the smell of the whole pharmacopoeia coming up my nose, or pounding something in a mortar under his mild directions. For the same reason, added no doubt to the old dislike of her, I was seldom allowed to visit Peggotty. Faithful to her promise, she either came to see me, or met me somewhere near, once every week, and never empty-handed; but many and bitter were the disappointments I had, in being refused permission to pay a visit to her at her house. Some few times, however, at long intervals, I was allowed to go there; and then I found out that Mr. Barkis was something of a miser, or as Peggotty dutifully expressed it, was "a little near," and kept a heap of money in a box under his bed, which he pretended was only full of coats and trousers. In this coffer, his riches hid themselves with such a tenacious modesty, that the smallest instalments could only be tempted out by artifice; so that Peggotty had to prepare a long and elaborate scheme, a very Gunpowder Plot, for every Saturday's expenses. All this time I was so conscious of the waste of any promise I had given, and of my being utterly neglected, that I should have been perfectly miserable, I have no doubt, but for the old books. They were my only comfort; and I was as true to them as they were to me, and read them over and over I don't know how many times more. I now approach a period of my life, which I can never lose the remembrance of, while I remember any thing; and the recollection of which has often, without my invocation, come before me like a ghost, and haunted happier times. I had been out, one day, loitering somewhere, in the listless, meditative manner that my way of life engendered, when, turning the corner of a lane near our house, I came upon Mr. Murdstone walking with a gentleman. I was confused, and was going by them, when the gentleman cried: "What! Brooks!" "No, sir, David Copperfield," I said. "Don't tell me. You are Brooks," said the gentleman. "You are Brooks of Sheffield. That's your name." At these words, I observed the gentleman more attentively. His laugh coming to my remembrance too, I knew him to be Mr. Quinion, whom I had gone over to Lowestoft with Mr. Murdstone to see, before--it is no matter--I need not recall when. "And how do you get on, and where are you being educated, Brooks?" said Mr. Quinion. He had put his hand upon my shoulder, and turned me about, to walk with them. I did not know what to reply, and glanced dubiously at Mr. Murdstone. "He is at home at present," said the latter. "He is not being educated anywhere. I don't know what to do with him. He is a difficult subject." That old, double look was on me for a moment; and then his eye darkened with a frown, as it turned, in its aversion, elsewhere. "Humph!" said Mr. Quinion, looking at us both, I thought. "Fine weather!" Silence ensued, and I was considering how I could best disengage my shoulder from his hand, and go away, when he said: "I suppose you are a pretty sharp fellow still? Eh, Brooks?" "Aye! He is sharp enough," said Mr. Murdstone, impatiently. "You had better let him go. He will not thank you for troubling him." On this hint, Mr. Quinion released me, and I made the best of my way home. Looking back as I turned into the front garden, I saw Mr. Murdstone leaning against the wicket of the churchyard, and Mr. Quinion talking to him. They were both looking after me, and I felt that they were speaking of me. Mr. Quinion lay at our house that night. After breakfast, the next morning, I had put my chair away, and was going out of the room, when Mr. Murdstone called me back. He then gravely repaired to another table, where his sister sat herself at her desk. Mr. Quinion, with his hands in his pockets, stood looking out of window; and I stood looking at them all. "David," said Mr. Murdstone, "to the young this is a world for action; not for moping and droning in." --"As you do," added his sister. "Jane Murdstone, leave it to me, if you please. I say, David, to the young this is a world for action, and not for moping and droning in. It is especially so for a young boy of your disposition, which requires a great deal of correcting; and to which no greater service can be done than to force it to conform to the ways of the working world, and to bend it and break it." "For stubbornness won't do here," said his sister. "What it wants, is, to be crushed. And crushed it must be. Shall be, too!" He gave her a look, half in remonstrance, half in approval, and went on: "I suppose you know, David, that I am not rich. At any rate, you know it now. You have received some considerable education already. Education is costly; and even if it were not, and I could afford it, I am of opinion that it would not be at all advantageous to you to be kept at a school. What is before you, is a fight with the world; and the sooner you begin it, the better." I think it occurred to me that I had already begun it, in my poor way: but it occurs to me now, whether or no. "You have heard 'the counting-house' mentioned sometimes," said Mr. Murdstone. "The counting-house, sir?" I repeated. "Of Murdstone and Grinby, in the wine trade," he replied. I suppose I looked uncertain, for he went on hastily: "You have heard the 'counting-house' mentioned, or the business, or the cellars, or the wharf, or something about it." "I think I have heard the business mentioned, sir," I said, remembering what I vaguely knew of his and his sister's resources. "But I don't know when." "It does not matter when," he returned. "Mr. Quinion manages that business." I glanced at the latter deferentially as he stood looking out of window. "Mr. Quinion suggests that it gives employment to some other boys, and that he sees no reason why it shouldn't, on the same terms, give employment to you." "He having," Mr. Quinion observed in a low voice, and half turning round, "no other prospect, Murdstone." Mr. Murdstone, with an impatient, even an angry gesture, resumed, without noticing what he had said: "Those terms are, that you will earn enough for yourself to provide for your eating and drinking, and pocket-money. Your lodging (which I have arranged for) will be paid by me. So will your washing--" "--Which will be kept down to my estimate," said his sister. "Your clothes will be looked after for you, too," said Mr. Murdstone; "as you will not be able, yet awhile, to get them for yourself. So you are now going to London, David, with Mr. Quinion, to begin the world on your own account." "In short, you are provided for," observed his sister; "and will please to do your duty." Though I quite understood that the purpose of this announcement was to get rid of me, I have no distinct remembrance whether it pleased or frightened me. My impression is, that I was in a state of confusion about it, and, oscillating between the two points, touched neither. Nor had I much time for the clearing of my thoughts, as Mr. Quinion was to go upon the morrow. Behold me, on the morrow, in a much-worn little white hat, with a black crape round it for my mother, a black jacket, and a pair of hard stiff corduroy trousers--which Miss Murdstone considered the best armour for the legs in that fight with the world which was now to come off: behold me so attired, and with my little worldly all before me in a small trunk, sitting, a lone lorn child (as Mrs. Gummidge might have said), in the postchaise that was carrying Mr. Quinion to the London coach at Yarmouth! See, how our house and church are lessening in the distance; how the grave beneath the tree is blotted out by intervening objects; how the spire points upward from my old playground no more, and the sky is empty! CHAPTER XI. I BEGIN LIFE ON MY OWN ACCOUNT, AND DON'T LIKE IT. I know enough of the world now, to have almost lost the capacity of being much surprised by anything; but it is matter of some surprise to me, even now, that I can have been so easily thrown away at such an age. A child of excellent abilities, and with strong powers of observation, quick, eager, delicate, and soon hurt bodily or mentally, it seems wonderful to me that nobody should have made any sign in my behalf. But none was made; and I became, at ten years old, a little labouring hind in the service of Murdstone and Grinby. Murdstone and Grinby's warehouse was at the water side. It was down in Blackfriars. Modern improvements have altered the place; but it was the last house at the bottom of a narrow street, curving down hill to the river, with some stairs at the end, where people took boat. It was a crazy old house with a wharf of its own, abutting on the water when the tide was in, and on the mud when the tide was out, and literally overrun with rats. Its panelled rooms, discolored with the dirt and smoke of a hundred years, I dare say; its decaying floors and staircase; the squeaking and scuffling of the old grey rats down in the cellars; and the dirt and rottenness of the place; are things, not of many years ago, in my mind, but of the present instant. They are all before me, just as they were in the evil hour when I went among them for the first time, with my trembling hand in Mr. Quinion's. Murdstone and Grinby's trade was among a good many kinds of people, but an important branch of it was the supply of wines and spirits to certain packet ships. I forget now where they chiefly went, but I think there were some among them that made voyages both to the East and West Indies. I know that a great many empty bottles were one of the consequences of this traffic, and that certain men and boys were employed to examine them against the light, and reject those that were flawed, and to rinse and wash them. When the empty bottles ran short, there were labels to be pasted on full ones, or corks to be fitted to them, or seals to be put upon the corks, or finished bottles to be packed in casks. All this work was my work, and of the boys employed upon it I was one. There were three or four of us, counting me. My working place was established in a corner of the warehouse, where Mr. Quinion could see me, when he chose to stand up on the bottom rail of his stool in the counting-house, and look at me through a window above the desk. Hither, on the first morning of my so auspiciously beginning life on my own account, the oldest of the regular boys was summoned to show me my business. His name was Mick Walker, and he wore a ragged apron and a paper cap. He informed me that his father was a bargeman, and walked, in a black velvet head-dress, in the Lord Mayor's Show. He also informed me that our principal associate would be another boy whom he introduced by the--to me--extraordinary name of Mealy Potatoes. I discovered, however, that this youth had not been christened by that name, but that it had been bestowed upon him in the warehouse, on account of his complexion, which was pale or mealy. Mealy's father was a waterman, who had the additional distinction of being a fireman, and was engaged as such at one of the large theatres; where some young relation of Mealy's--I think his little sister--did Imps in the Pantomimes. No words can express the secret agony of my soul as I sunk into this companionship; compared these henceforth every-day associates with those of my happier childhood--not to say with Steerforth, Traddles, and the rest of those boys; and felt my hopes of growing up to be a learned and distinguished man, crushed in my bosom. The deep remembrance of the sense I had, of being utterly without hope now; of the shame I felt in my position; of the misery it was to my young heart to believe that day by day what I had learned, and thought, and delighted in, and raised my fancy and my emulation up by, would pass away from me, little by little, never to be brought back any more; cannot be written. As often as Mick Walker went away in the course of that forenoon, I mingled my tears with the water in which I was washing the bottles; and sobbed as if there were a flaw in my own breast, and it were in danger of bursting. The counting-house clock was at half-past twelve, and there was general preparation for going to dinner, when Mr. Quinion tapped at the counting-house window, and beckoned to me to go in. I went in, and found there a stoutish, middle-aged person, in a brown surtout and black tights and shoes, with no more hair upon his head (which was a large one, and very shining) than there is upon an egg, and with a very extensive face, which he turned full upon me. His clothes were shabby, but he had an imposing shirt-collar on. He carried a jaunty sort of a stick, with a large pair of rusty tassels to it; and a quizzing-glass hung outside his coat,--for ornament, I afterwards found, as he very seldom looked through it, and couldn't see anything when he did. "This," said Mr. Quinion, in allusion to myself, "is he." "This," said the stranger, with a certain condescending roll in his voice, and a certain indescribable air of doing something genteel, which impressed me very much, "is Master Copperfield. I hope I see you well, sir?" I said I was very well, and hoped he was. I was sufficiently ill at ease, Heaven knows; but it was not in my nature to complain much at that time of my life, so I said I was very well, and hoped he was. "I am," said the stranger, "thank Heaven, quite well. I have received a letter from Mr. Murdstone, in which he mentions that he would desire me to receive into an apartment in the rear of my house, which is at present unoccupied--and is, in short, to be let as a--in short," said the stranger, with a smile and in a burst of confidence, "as a bed-room--the young beginner whom I have now the pleasure to--" and the stranger waved his hand, and settled his chin in his shirt collar. "This is Mr. Micawber," said Mr. Quinion to me. "Ahem!" said the stranger, "that is my name." "Mr. Micawber," said Mr. Quinion, "is known to Mr. Murdstone. He takes orders for us on commission, when he can get any. He has been written to by Mr. Murdstone, on the subject of your lodgings, and he will receive you as a lodger." "My address," said Mr. Micawber, "is Windsor Terrace, City Road. I--in short," said Mr. Micawber, with the same genteel air, and in another burst of confidence--"I live there." I made him a bow. "Under the impression," said Mr. Micawber, "that your peregrinations in this metropolis have not as yet been extensive, and that you might have some difficulty in penetrating the arcana of the Modern Babylon in the direction of the City Road--in short," said Mr. Micawber, in another burst of confidence, "that you might lose yourself--I shall be happy to call this evening, and install you in the knowledge of the nearest way." I thanked him with all my heart, for it was friendly in him to offer to take that trouble. "At what hour," said Mr. Micawber, "shall I--" "At about eight," said Mr. Quinion. "At about eight," said Mr. Micawber. "I beg to wish you good day, Mr. Quinion. I will intrude no longer." So he put on his hat, and went out with his cane under his arm: very upright, and humming a tune when he was clear of the counting-house. Mr. Quinion then formally engaged me to be as useful as I could in the warehouse of Murdstone and Grinby, at a salary, I think, of six shillings a week. I am not clear whether it was six or seven. I am inclined to believe, from my uncertainty on this head, that it was six at first and seven afterwards. He paid me a week down (from his own pocket, I believe), and I gave Mealy sixpence out of it to get my trunk carried to Windsor Terrace at night: it being too heavy for my strength, small as it was. I paid sixpence more for my dinner, which was a meat pie and a turn at a neighbouring pump; and passed the hour which was allowed for that meal, in walking about the streets. At the appointed time in the evening, Mr. Micawber reappeared. I washed my hands and face, to do the greater honour to his gentility, and we walked to our house, as I suppose I must now call it, together; Mr. Micawber impressing the names of streets, and the shapes of corner houses upon me, as we went along, that I might find my way back, easily, in the morning. Arrived at his house in Windsor Terrace (which I noticed was shabby like himself, but also, like himself, made all the show it could), he presented me to Mrs. Micawber, a thin and faded lady, not at all young, who was sitting in

casts

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

with them; you had better do it yourself." But here Peggotty, who had been going about from one to another in a hurried way, kissing everybody, called out from the cart, in which we all were by this time (Em'ly and I on two little chairs, side by side), that Mrs. Gummidge must do it. So Mrs. Gummidge did it; and, I am sorry to relate, cast a damp upon the festive character of our departure, by immediately bursting into tears, and sinking subdued into the arms of Ham, with the declaration that she knowed she was a burden, and had better be carried to the House at once. Which I really thought was a sensible idea, that Ham might have acted on. [Illustration: Mrs. Gummidge casts a damp on our departure.] Away we went, however, on our holiday excursion; and the first thing we did was to stop at a church, where Mr. Barkis tied the horse to some rails, and went in with Peggotty, leaving little Em'ly and me alone in the chaise. I took that occasion to put my arm round Em'ly's waist, and propose that as I was going away so very soon now, we should determine to be very affectionate to one another, and very happy, all day. Little Em'ly consenting, and allowing me to kiss her, I became desperate; informing her, I recollect, that I never could love another, and that I was prepared to shed the blood of anybody who should aspire to her affections. How merry little Em'ly made herself about it! With what a demure assumption of being immensely older and wiser than I, the fairy little woman said I was "a silly boy;" and then laughed so charmingly that I forgot the pain of being called by that disparaging name, in the pleasure of looking at her. Mr. Barkis and Peggotty were a good while in the church, but came out at last, and then we drove away into the country. As we were going along, Mr. Barkis turned to me, and said, with a wink,--by-the-by, I should hardly have thought, before, that he _could_ wink: "What name was it as I wrote up in the cart?" "Clara Peggotty," I answered. "What name would it be as I should write up now, if there was a tilt here?" "Clara Peggotty, again?" I suggested. "Clara Peggotty BARKIS!" he returned, and burst into a roar of laughter that shook the chaise. In a word, they were married, and had gone into the church for no other purpose. Peggotty was resolved that it should be quietly done; and the clerk had given her away, and there had been no witnesses of the ceremony. She was a little confused when Mr. Barkis made this abrupt announcement of their union, and could not hug me enough in token of her unimpaired affection; but she soon became herself again, and said she was very glad it was over. We drove to a little inn in a bye road, where we were expected, and where we had a very comfortable dinner, and passed the day with great satisfaction. If Peggotty had been married every day for the last ten years, she could hardly have been more at her ease about it; it made no sort of difference in her: she was just the same as ever, and went out for a stroll with little Em'ly and me before tea, while Mr. Barkis philosophically smoked his pipe, and enjoyed himself, I suppose, with the contemplation of his happiness. If so, it sharpened his appetite; for I distinctly call to mind that, although he had eaten a good deal of pork and greens at dinner, and had finished off with a fowl or two, he was obliged to have cold boiled bacon for tea, and disposed of a large quantity without any emotion. I have often thought, since, what an odd, innocent, out-of-the-way kind of wedding it must have been! We got into the chaise again soon after dark, and drove cosily back, looking up at the stars, and talking about them. I was their chief exponent, and opened Mr. Barkis's mind to an amazing extent. I told him all I knew, but he would have believed anything I might have taken it into my head to impart to him; for he had a profound veneration for my abilities, and informed his wife in my hearing, on that very occasion, that I was "a young Roeshus"--by which I think he meant, prodigy. When we had exhausted the subject of the stars, or rather when I had exhausted the mental faculties of Mr. Barkis, little Em'ly and I made a cloak of an old wrapper, and sat under it for the rest of the journey. Ah, how I loved her! What happiness (I thought) if we were married, and were going away anywhere to live among the trees and in the fields, never growing older, never growing wiser, children ever, rambling hand in hand through sunshine and among flowery meadows, laying down our heads on moss at night, in a sweet sleep of purity and peace, and buried by the birds when we were dead! Some such picture, with no real world in it, bright with the light of our innocence, and vague as the stars afar off, was in my mind all the way. I am glad to think there were two such guileless hearts at Peggotty's marriage as little Em'ly's and mine. I am glad to think the Loves and Graces took such airy forms in its homely procession. Well, we came to the old boat again in good time at night; and there Mr. and Mrs. Barkis bade us good-bye, and drove away snugly to their own home. I felt then, for the first time, that I had lost Peggotty. I should have gone to bed with a sore heart indeed under any other roof but that which sheltered little Em'ly's head. Mr. Peggotty and Ham knew what was in my thoughts as well as I did, and were ready with some supper and their hospitable faces to drive it away. Little Em'ly came and sat beside me on the locker, for the only time in all that visit; and it was altogether a wonderful close to a wonderful day. It was a night tide; and soon after we went to bed, Mr. Peggotty and Ham went out to fish. I felt very brave at being left alone in the solitary house, the protector of Em'ly and Mrs. Gummidge, and only wished that a lion or a serpent, or any ill-disposed monster, would make an attack upon us, that I might destroy him, and cover myself with glory. But as nothing of the sort happened to be walking about on Yarmouth flats that night, I provided the best substitute I could by dreaming of dragons until morning. With morning came Peggotty; who called to me, as usual, under my window as if Mr. Barkis the carrier had been from first to last a dream too. After breakfast she took me to her own home, and a beautiful little home it was. Of all the moveables in it, I must have been most impressed by a certain old bureau of some dark wood in the parlor (the tile-floored kitchen was the general sitting-room), with a retreating top which opened, let down, and became a desk, within which, was a large quarto edition of Fox's Book of Martyrs. This precious volume, of which I do not recollect one word, I immediately discovered and immediately applied myself to; and I never visited the house afterwards, but I kneeled on a chair, opened the casket where this gem was enshrined, spread my arms over the desk, and fell to devouring the book afresh. I was chiefly edified, I am afraid, by the pictures, which were numerous, and represented all kinds of dismal horrors; but the Martyrs and Peggotty's house have been inseparable in my mind ever since, and are now. I took leave of Mr. Peggotty, and Ham, and Mrs. Gummidge, and little Em'ly, that day; and passed the night at Peggotty's, in a little room in the roof (with the crocodile-book on a shelf by the bed's head) which was to be always mine, Peggotty said, and should always be kept for me in exactly the same state. "Young or old, Davy dear, as long as I am alive and have this house over my head," said Peggotty, "you shall find it as if I expected you here directly minute. I shall keep it every day, as I used to keep your old little room, my darling; and if you was to go to China, you might think of it as being kept just the same, all the time you were away." I felt the truth and constancy of my dear old nurse, with all my heart, and thanked her as well as I could. That was not very well, for she spoke to me thus, with her arms round my neck, in the morning, and I was going home in the morning, and I went home in the morning, with herself and Mr. Barkis in the cart. They left me at the gate, not easily or lightly; and it was a strange sight to me to see the cart go on, taking Peggotty away, and leaving me under the old elm-trees looking at the house, in which there was no face to look on mine with love or liking any more. And now I fell into a state of neglect, which I cannot look back upon without compassion. I fell at once into a solitary condition,--apart from all friendly notice, apart from the society of all other boys of my own age, apart from all companionship but my own spiritless thoughts,--which seems to cast its gloom upon this paper as I write. What would I have given, to have been sent to the hardest school that ever was kept!--to have been taught something, anyhow, anywhere! No such hope dawned upon me. They disliked me; and they sullenly, sternly, steadily, overlooked me. I think Mr. Murdstone's means were straitened at about this time; but it is little to the purpose. He could not bear me; and in putting me from him he tried, as I believe, to put away the notion that I had any claim upon him--and succeeded. I was not actively ill-used. I was not beaten, or starved; but the wrong that was done to me had no intervals of relenting, and was done in a systematic, passionless manner. Day after day, week after week, month after month, I was coldly neglected. I wonder sometimes, when I think of it, what they would have done if I had been taken with an illness; whether I should have lain down in my lonely room, and languished through it in my usual solitary way, or whether anybody would have helped me out. When Mr. and Miss Murdstone were at home, I took my meals with them; in their absence, I ate and drank by myself. At all times I lounged about the house and neighbourhood quite disregarded, except that they were jealous of my making any friends: thinking, perhaps, that, if I did, I might complain to some one. For this reason, though Mr. Chillip often asked me to go and see him (he was a widower, having, some years before that, lost a little small light-haired wife, whom I can just remember connecting in my own thoughts with a pale tortoise-shell cat), it was but seldom that I enjoyed the happiness of passing an afternoon in his closet of a surgery; reading some book that was new to me, with the smell of the whole pharmacopoeia coming up my nose, or pounding something in a mortar under his mild directions. For the same reason, added no doubt to the old dislike of her, I was seldom allowed to visit Peggotty. Faithful to her promise, she either came to see me, or met me somewhere near, once every week, and never empty-handed; but many and bitter were the disappointments I had, in being refused permission to pay a visit to her at her house. Some few times, however, at long intervals, I was allowed to go there; and then I found out that Mr. Barkis was something of a miser, or as Peggotty dutifully expressed it, was "a little near," and kept a heap of money in a box under his bed, which he pretended was only full of coats and trousers. In this coffer, his riches hid themselves with such a tenacious modesty, that the smallest instalments could only be tempted out by artifice; so that Peggotty had to prepare a long and elaborate scheme, a very Gunpowder Plot, for every Saturday's expenses. All this time I was so conscious of the waste of any promise I had given, and of my being utterly neglected, that I should have been perfectly miserable, I have no doubt, but for the old books. They were my only comfort; and I was as true to them as they were to me, and read them over and over I don't know how many times more. I now approach a period of my life, which I can never lose the remembrance of, while I remember any thing; and the recollection of which has often, without my invocation, come before me like a ghost, and haunted happier times. I had been out, one day, loitering somewhere, in the listless, meditative manner that my way of life engendered, when, turning the corner of a lane near our house, I came upon Mr. Murdstone walking with a gentleman. I was confused, and was going by them, when the gentleman cried: "What! Brooks!" "No, sir, David Copperfield," I said. "Don't tell me. You are Brooks," said the gentleman. "You are Brooks of Sheffield. That's your name." At these words, I observed the gentleman more attentively. His laugh coming to my remembrance too, I knew him to be Mr. Quinion, whom I had gone over to Lowestoft with Mr. Murdstone to see, before--it is no matter--I need not recall when. "And how do you get on, and where are you being educated, Brooks?" said Mr. Quinion. He had put his hand upon my shoulder, and turned me about, to walk with them. I did not know what to reply, and glanced dubiously at Mr. Murdstone. "He is at home at present," said the latter. "He is not being educated anywhere. I don't know what to do with him. He is a difficult subject." That old, double look was on me for a moment; and then his eye darkened with a frown, as it turned, in its aversion, elsewhere. "Humph!" said Mr. Quinion, looking at us both, I thought. "Fine weather!" Silence ensued, and I was considering how I could best disengage my shoulder from his hand, and go away, when he said: "I suppose you are a pretty sharp fellow still? Eh, Brooks?" "Aye! He is sharp enough," said Mr. Murdstone, impatiently. "You had better let him go. He will not thank you for troubling him." On this hint, Mr. Quinion released me, and I made the best of my way home. Looking back as I turned into the front garden, I saw Mr. Murdstone leaning against the wicket of the churchyard, and Mr. Quinion talking to him. They were both looking after me, and I felt that they were speaking of me. Mr. Quinion lay at our house that night. After breakfast, the next morning, I had put my chair away, and was going out of the room, when Mr. Murdstone called me back. He then gravely repaired to another table, where his sister sat herself at her desk. Mr. Quinion, with his hands in his pockets, stood looking out of window; and I stood looking at them all. "David," said Mr. Murdstone, "to the young this is a world for action; not for moping and droning in." --"As you do," added his sister. "Jane Murdstone, leave it to me, if you please. I say, David, to the young this is a world for action, and not for moping and droning in. It is especially so for a young boy of your disposition, which requires a great deal of correcting; and to which no greater service can be done than to force it to conform to the ways of the working world, and to bend it and break it." "For stubbornness won't do here," said his sister. "What it wants, is, to be crushed. And crushed it must be. Shall be, too!" He gave her a look, half in remonstrance, half in approval, and went on: "I suppose you know, David, that I am not rich. At any rate, you know it now. You have received some considerable education already. Education is costly; and even if it were not, and I could afford it, I am of opinion that it would not be at all advantageous to you to be kept at a school. What is before you, is a fight with the world; and the sooner you begin it, the better." I think it occurred to me that I had already begun it, in my poor way: but it occurs to me now, whether or no. "You have heard 'the counting-house' mentioned sometimes," said Mr. Murdstone. "The counting-house, sir?" I repeated. "Of Murdstone and Grinby, in the wine trade," he replied. I suppose I looked uncertain, for he went on hastily: "You have heard the 'counting-house' mentioned, or the business, or the cellars, or the wharf, or something about it." "I think I have heard the business mentioned, sir," I said, remembering what I vaguely knew of his and his sister's resources. "But I don't know when." "It does not matter when," he returned. "Mr. Quinion manages that business." I glanced at the latter deferentially as he stood looking out of window. "Mr. Quinion suggests that it gives employment to some other boys, and that he sees no reason why it shouldn't, on the same terms, give employment to you." "He having," Mr. Quinion observed in a low voice, and half turning round, "no other prospect, Murdstone." Mr. Murdstone, with an impatient, even an angry gesture, resumed, without noticing what he had said: "Those terms are, that you will earn enough for yourself to provide for your eating and drinking, and pocket-money. Your lodging (which I have arranged for) will be paid by me. So will your washing--" "--Which will be kept down to my estimate," said his sister. "Your clothes will be looked after for you, too," said Mr. Murdstone; "as you will not be able, yet awhile, to get them for yourself. So you are now going to London, David, with Mr. Quinion, to begin the world on your own account." "In short, you are provided for," observed his sister; "and will please to do your duty." Though I quite understood that the purpose of this announcement was to get rid of me, I have no distinct remembrance whether it pleased or frightened me. My impression is, that I was in a state of confusion about it, and, oscillating between the two points, touched neither. Nor had I much time for the clearing of my thoughts, as Mr. Quinion was to go upon the morrow. Behold me, on the morrow, in a much-worn little white hat, with a black crape round it for my mother, a black jacket, and a pair of hard stiff corduroy trousers--which Miss Murdstone considered the best armour for the legs in that fight with the world which was now to come off: behold me so attired, and with my little worldly all before me in a small trunk, sitting, a lone lorn child (as Mrs. Gummidge might have said), in the postchaise that was carrying Mr. Quinion to the London coach at Yarmouth! See, how our house and church are lessening in the distance; how the grave beneath the tree is blotted out by intervening objects; how the spire points upward from my old playground no more, and the sky is empty! CHAPTER XI. I BEGIN LIFE ON MY OWN ACCOUNT, AND DON'T LIKE IT. I know enough of the world now, to have almost lost the capacity of being much surprised by anything; but it is matter of some surprise to me, even now, that I can have been so easily thrown away at such an age. A child of excellent abilities, and with strong powers of observation, quick, eager, delicate, and soon hurt bodily or mentally, it seems wonderful to me that nobody should have made any sign in my behalf. But none was made; and I became, at ten years old, a little labouring hind in the service of Murdstone and Grinby. Murdstone and Grinby's warehouse was at the water side. It was down in Blackfriars. Modern improvements have altered the place; but it was the last house at the bottom of a narrow street, curving down hill to the river, with some stairs at the end, where people took boat. It was a crazy old house with a wharf of its own, abutting on the water when the tide was in, and on the mud when the tide was out, and literally overrun with rats. Its panelled rooms, discolored with the dirt and smoke of a hundred years, I dare say; its decaying floors and staircase; the squeaking and scuffling of the old grey rats down in the cellars; and the dirt and rottenness of the place; are things, not of many years ago, in my mind, but of the present instant. They are all before me, just as they were in the evil hour when I went among them for the first time, with my trembling hand in Mr. Quinion's. Murdstone and Grinby's trade was among a good many kinds of people, but an important branch of it was the supply of wines and spirits to certain packet ships. I forget now where they chiefly went, but I think there were some among them that made voyages both to the East and West Indies. I know that a great many empty bottles were one of the consequences of this traffic, and that certain men and boys were employed to examine them against the light, and reject those that were flawed, and to rinse and wash them. When the empty bottles ran short, there were labels to be pasted on full ones, or corks to be fitted to them, or seals to be put upon the corks, or finished bottles to be packed in casks. All this work was my work, and of the boys employed upon it I was one. There were three or four of us, counting me. My working place was established in a corner of the warehouse, where Mr. Quinion could see me, when he chose to stand up on the bottom rail of his stool in the counting-house, and look at me through a window above the desk. Hither, on the first morning of my so auspiciously beginning life on my own account, the oldest of the regular boys was summoned to show me my business. His name was Mick Walker, and he wore a ragged apron and a paper cap. He informed me that his father was a bargeman, and walked, in a black velvet head-dress, in the Lord Mayor's Show. He also informed me that our principal associate would be another boy whom he introduced by the--to me--extraordinary name of Mealy Potatoes. I discovered, however, that this youth had not been christened by that name, but that it had been bestowed upon him in the warehouse, on account of his complexion, which was pale or mealy. Mealy's father was a waterman, who had the additional distinction of being a fireman, and was engaged as such at one of the large theatres; where some young relation of Mealy's--I think his little sister--did Imps in the Pantomimes. No words can express the secret agony of my soul as I sunk into this companionship; compared these henceforth every-day associates with those of my happier childhood--not to say with Steerforth, Traddles, and the rest of those boys; and felt my hopes of growing up to be a learned and distinguished man, crushed in my bosom. The deep remembrance of the sense I had, of being utterly without hope now; of the shame I felt in my position; of the misery it was to my young heart to believe that day by day what I had learned, and thought, and delighted in, and raised my fancy and my emulation up by, would pass away from me, little by little, never to be brought back any more; cannot be written. As often as Mick Walker went away in the course of that forenoon, I mingled my tears with the water in which I was washing the bottles; and sobbed as if there were a flaw in my own breast, and it were in danger of bursting. The counting-house clock was at half-past twelve, and there was general preparation for going to dinner, when Mr. Quinion tapped at the counting-house window, and beckoned to me to go in. I went in, and found there a stoutish, middle-aged person, in a brown surtout and black tights and shoes, with no more hair upon his head (which was a large one, and very shining) than there is upon an egg, and with a very extensive face, which he turned full upon me. His clothes were shabby, but he had an imposing shirt-collar on. He carried a jaunty sort of a stick, with a large pair of rusty tassels to it; and a quizzing-glass hung outside his coat,--for ornament, I afterwards found, as he very seldom looked through it, and couldn't see anything when he did. "This," said Mr. Quinion, in allusion to myself, "is he." "This," said the stranger, with a certain condescending roll in his voice, and a certain indescribable air of doing something genteel, which impressed me very much, "is Master Copperfield. I hope I see you well, sir?" I said I was very well, and hoped he was. I was sufficiently ill at ease, Heaven knows; but it was not in my nature to complain much at that time of my life, so I said I was very well, and hoped he was. "I am," said the stranger, "thank Heaven, quite well. I have received a letter from Mr. Murdstone, in which he mentions that he would desire me to receive into an apartment in the rear of my house, which is at present unoccupied--and is, in short, to be let as a--in short," said the stranger, with a smile and in a burst of confidence, "as a bed-room--the young beginner whom I have now the pleasure to--" and the stranger waved his hand, and settled his chin in his shirt collar. "This is Mr. Micawber," said Mr. Quinion to me. "Ahem!" said the stranger, "that is my name." "Mr. Micawber," said Mr. Quinion, "is known to Mr. Murdstone. He takes orders for us on commission, when he can get any. He has been written to by Mr. Murdstone, on the subject of your lodgings, and he will receive you as a lodger." "My address," said Mr. Micawber, "is Windsor Terrace, City Road. I--in short," said Mr. Micawber, with the same genteel air, and in another burst of confidence--"I live there." I made him a bow. "Under the impression," said Mr. Micawber, "that your peregrinations in this metropolis have not as yet been extensive, and that you might have some difficulty in penetrating the arcana of the Modern Babylon in the direction of the City Road--in short," said Mr. Micawber, in another burst of confidence, "that you might lose yourself--I shall be happy to call this evening, and install you in the knowledge of the nearest way." I thanked him with all my heart, for it was friendly in him to offer to take that trouble. "At what hour," said Mr. Micawber, "shall I--" "At about eight," said Mr. Quinion. "At about eight," said Mr. Micawber. "I beg to wish you good day, Mr. Quinion. I will intrude no longer." So he put on his hat, and went out with his cane under his arm: very upright, and humming a tune when he was clear of the counting-house. Mr. Quinion then formally engaged me to be as useful as I could in the warehouse of Murdstone and Grinby, at a salary, I think, of six shillings a week. I am not clear whether it was six or seven. I am inclined to believe, from my uncertainty on this head, that it was six at first and seven afterwards. He paid me a week down (from his own pocket, I believe), and I gave Mealy sixpence out of it to get my trunk carried to Windsor Terrace at night: it being too heavy for my strength, small as it was. I paid sixpence more for my dinner, which was a meat pie and a turn at a neighbouring pump; and passed the hour which was allowed for that meal, in walking about the streets. At the appointed time in the evening, Mr. Micawber reappeared. I washed my hands and face, to do the greater honour to his gentility, and we walked to our house, as I suppose I must now call it, together; Mr. Micawber impressing the names of streets, and the shapes of corner houses upon me, as we went along, that I might find my way back, easily, in the morning. Arrived at his house in Windsor Terrace (which I noticed was shabby like himself, but also, like himself, made all the show it could), he presented me to Mrs. Micawber, a thin and faded lady, not at all young, who was sitting in

solitary

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

with them; you had better do it yourself." But here Peggotty, who had been going about from one to another in a hurried way, kissing everybody, called out from the cart, in which we all were by this time (Em'ly and I on two little chairs, side by side), that Mrs. Gummidge must do it. So Mrs. Gummidge did it; and, I am sorry to relate, cast a damp upon the festive character of our departure, by immediately bursting into tears, and sinking subdued into the arms of Ham, with the declaration that she knowed she was a burden, and had better be carried to the House at once. Which I really thought was a sensible idea, that Ham might have acted on. [Illustration: Mrs. Gummidge casts a damp on our departure.] Away we went, however, on our holiday excursion; and the first thing we did was to stop at a church, where Mr. Barkis tied the horse to some rails, and went in with Peggotty, leaving little Em'ly and me alone in the chaise. I took that occasion to put my arm round Em'ly's waist, and propose that as I was going away so very soon now, we should determine to be very affectionate to one another, and very happy, all day. Little Em'ly consenting, and allowing me to kiss her, I became desperate; informing her, I recollect, that I never could love another, and that I was prepared to shed the blood of anybody who should aspire to her affections. How merry little Em'ly made herself about it! With what a demure assumption of being immensely older and wiser than I, the fairy little woman said I was "a silly boy;" and then laughed so charmingly that I forgot the pain of being called by that disparaging name, in the pleasure of looking at her. Mr. Barkis and Peggotty were a good while in the church, but came out at last, and then we drove away into the country. As we were going along, Mr. Barkis turned to me, and said, with a wink,--by-the-by, I should hardly have thought, before, that he _could_ wink: "What name was it as I wrote up in the cart?" "Clara Peggotty," I answered. "What name would it be as I should write up now, if there was a tilt here?" "Clara Peggotty, again?" I suggested. "Clara Peggotty BARKIS!" he returned, and burst into a roar of laughter that shook the chaise. In a word, they were married, and had gone into the church for no other purpose. Peggotty was resolved that it should be quietly done; and the clerk had given her away, and there had been no witnesses of the ceremony. She was a little confused when Mr. Barkis made this abrupt announcement of their union, and could not hug me enough in token of her unimpaired affection; but she soon became herself again, and said she was very glad it was over. We drove to a little inn in a bye road, where we were expected, and where we had a very comfortable dinner, and passed the day with great satisfaction. If Peggotty had been married every day for the last ten years, she could hardly have been more at her ease about it; it made no sort of difference in her: she was just the same as ever, and went out for a stroll with little Em'ly and me before tea, while Mr. Barkis philosophically smoked his pipe, and enjoyed himself, I suppose, with the contemplation of his happiness. If so, it sharpened his appetite; for I distinctly call to mind that, although he had eaten a good deal of pork and greens at dinner, and had finished off with a fowl or two, he was obliged to have cold boiled bacon for tea, and disposed of a large quantity without any emotion. I have often thought, since, what an odd, innocent, out-of-the-way kind of wedding it must have been! We got into the chaise again soon after dark, and drove cosily back, looking up at the stars, and talking about them. I was their chief exponent, and opened Mr. Barkis's mind to an amazing extent. I told him all I knew, but he would have believed anything I might have taken it into my head to impart to him; for he had a profound veneration for my abilities, and informed his wife in my hearing, on that very occasion, that I was "a young Roeshus"--by which I think he meant, prodigy. When we had exhausted the subject of the stars, or rather when I had exhausted the mental faculties of Mr. Barkis, little Em'ly and I made a cloak of an old wrapper, and sat under it for the rest of the journey. Ah, how I loved her! What happiness (I thought) if we were married, and were going away anywhere to live among the trees and in the fields, never growing older, never growing wiser, children ever, rambling hand in hand through sunshine and among flowery meadows, laying down our heads on moss at night, in a sweet sleep of purity and peace, and buried by the birds when we were dead! Some such picture, with no real world in it, bright with the light of our innocence, and vague as the stars afar off, was in my mind all the way. I am glad to think there were two such guileless hearts at Peggotty's marriage as little Em'ly's and mine. I am glad to think the Loves and Graces took such airy forms in its homely procession. Well, we came to the old boat again in good time at night; and there Mr. and Mrs. Barkis bade us good-bye, and drove away snugly to their own home. I felt then, for the first time, that I had lost Peggotty. I should have gone to bed with a sore heart indeed under any other roof but that which sheltered little Em'ly's head. Mr. Peggotty and Ham knew what was in my thoughts as well as I did, and were ready with some supper and their hospitable faces to drive it away. Little Em'ly came and sat beside me on the locker, for the only time in all that visit; and it was altogether a wonderful close to a wonderful day. It was a night tide; and soon after we went to bed, Mr. Peggotty and Ham went out to fish. I felt very brave at being left alone in the solitary house, the protector of Em'ly and Mrs. Gummidge, and only wished that a lion or a serpent, or any ill-disposed monster, would make an attack upon us, that I might destroy him, and cover myself with glory. But as nothing of the sort happened to be walking about on Yarmouth flats that night, I provided the best substitute I could by dreaming of dragons until morning. With morning came Peggotty; who called to me, as usual, under my window as if Mr. Barkis the carrier had been from first to last a dream too. After breakfast she took me to her own home, and a beautiful little home it was. Of all the moveables in it, I must have been most impressed by a certain old bureau of some dark wood in the parlor (the tile-floored kitchen was the general sitting-room), with a retreating top which opened, let down, and became a desk, within which, was a large quarto edition of Fox's Book of Martyrs. This precious volume, of which I do not recollect one word, I immediately discovered and immediately applied myself to; and I never visited the house afterwards, but I kneeled on a chair, opened the casket where this gem was enshrined, spread my arms over the desk, and fell to devouring the book afresh. I was chiefly edified, I am afraid, by the pictures, which were numerous, and represented all kinds of dismal horrors; but the Martyrs and Peggotty's house have been inseparable in my mind ever since, and are now. I took leave of Mr. Peggotty, and Ham, and Mrs. Gummidge, and little Em'ly, that day; and passed the night at Peggotty's, in a little room in the roof (with the crocodile-book on a shelf by the bed's head) which was to be always mine, Peggotty said, and should always be kept for me in exactly the same state. "Young or old, Davy dear, as long as I am alive and have this house over my head," said Peggotty, "you shall find it as if I expected you here directly minute. I shall keep it every day, as I used to keep your old little room, my darling; and if you was to go to China, you might think of it as being kept just the same, all the time you were away." I felt the truth and constancy of my dear old nurse, with all my heart, and thanked her as well as I could. That was not very well, for she spoke to me thus, with her arms round my neck, in the morning, and I was going home in the morning, and I went home in the morning, with herself and Mr. Barkis in the cart. They left me at the gate, not easily or lightly; and it was a strange sight to me to see the cart go on, taking Peggotty away, and leaving me under the old elm-trees looking at the house, in which there was no face to look on mine with love or liking any more. And now I fell into a state of neglect, which I cannot look back upon without compassion. I fell at once into a solitary condition,--apart from all friendly notice, apart from the society of all other boys of my own age, apart from all companionship but my own spiritless thoughts,--which seems to cast its gloom upon this paper as I write. What would I have given, to have been sent to the hardest school that ever was kept!--to have been taught something, anyhow, anywhere! No such hope dawned upon me. They disliked me; and they sullenly, sternly, steadily, overlooked me. I think Mr. Murdstone's means were straitened at about this time; but it is little to the purpose. He could not bear me; and in putting me from him he tried, as I believe, to put away the notion that I had any claim upon him--and succeeded. I was not actively ill-used. I was not beaten, or starved; but the wrong that was done to me had no intervals of relenting, and was done in a systematic, passionless manner. Day after day, week after week, month after month, I was coldly neglected. I wonder sometimes, when I think of it, what they would have done if I had been taken with an illness; whether I should have lain down in my lonely room, and languished through it in my usual solitary way, or whether anybody would have helped me out. When Mr. and Miss Murdstone were at home, I took my meals with them; in their absence, I ate and drank by myself. At all times I lounged about the house and neighbourhood quite disregarded, except that they were jealous of my making any friends: thinking, perhaps, that, if I did, I might complain to some one. For this reason, though Mr. Chillip often asked me to go and see him (he was a widower, having, some years before that, lost a little small light-haired wife, whom I can just remember connecting in my own thoughts with a pale tortoise-shell cat), it was but seldom that I enjoyed the happiness of passing an afternoon in his closet of a surgery; reading some book that was new to me, with the smell of the whole pharmacopoeia coming up my nose, or pounding something in a mortar under his mild directions. For the same reason, added no doubt to the old dislike of her, I was seldom allowed to visit Peggotty. Faithful to her promise, she either came to see me, or met me somewhere near, once every week, and never empty-handed; but many and bitter were the disappointments I had, in being refused permission to pay a visit to her at her house. Some few times, however, at long intervals, I was allowed to go there; and then I found out that Mr. Barkis was something of a miser, or as Peggotty dutifully expressed it, was "a little near," and kept a heap of money in a box under his bed, which he pretended was only full of coats and trousers. In this coffer, his riches hid themselves with such a tenacious modesty, that the smallest instalments could only be tempted out by artifice; so that Peggotty had to prepare a long and elaborate scheme, a very Gunpowder Plot, for every Saturday's expenses. All this time I was so conscious of the waste of any promise I had given, and of my being utterly neglected, that I should have been perfectly miserable, I have no doubt, but for the old books. They were my only comfort; and I was as true to them as they were to me, and read them over and over I don't know how many times more. I now approach a period of my life, which I can never lose the remembrance of, while I remember any thing; and the recollection of which has often, without my invocation, come before me like a ghost, and haunted happier times. I had been out, one day, loitering somewhere, in the listless, meditative manner that my way of life engendered, when, turning the corner of a lane near our house, I came upon Mr. Murdstone walking with a gentleman. I was confused, and was going by them, when the gentleman cried: "What! Brooks!" "No, sir, David Copperfield," I said. "Don't tell me. You are Brooks," said the gentleman. "You are Brooks of Sheffield. That's your name." At these words, I observed the gentleman more attentively. His laugh coming to my remembrance too, I knew him to be Mr. Quinion, whom I had gone over to Lowestoft with Mr. Murdstone to see, before--it is no matter--I need not recall when. "And how do you get on, and where are you being educated, Brooks?" said Mr. Quinion. He had put his hand upon my shoulder, and turned me about, to walk with them. I did not know what to reply, and glanced dubiously at Mr. Murdstone. "He is at home at present," said the latter. "He is not being educated anywhere. I don't know what to do with him. He is a difficult subject." That old, double look was on me for a moment; and then his eye darkened with a frown, as it turned, in its aversion, elsewhere. "Humph!" said Mr. Quinion, looking at us both, I thought. "Fine weather!" Silence ensued, and I was considering how I could best disengage my shoulder from his hand, and go away, when he said: "I suppose you are a pretty sharp fellow still? Eh, Brooks?" "Aye! He is sharp enough," said Mr. Murdstone, impatiently. "You had better let him go. He will not thank you for troubling him." On this hint, Mr. Quinion released me, and I made the best of my way home. Looking back as I turned into the front garden, I saw Mr. Murdstone leaning against the wicket of the churchyard, and Mr. Quinion talking to him. They were both looking after me, and I felt that they were speaking of me. Mr. Quinion lay at our house that night. After breakfast, the next morning, I had put my chair away, and was going out of the room, when Mr. Murdstone called me back. He then gravely repaired to another table, where his sister sat herself at her desk. Mr. Quinion, with his hands in his pockets, stood looking out of window; and I stood looking at them all. "David," said Mr. Murdstone, "to the young this is a world for action; not for moping and droning in." --"As you do," added his sister. "Jane Murdstone, leave it to me, if you please. I say, David, to the young this is a world for action, and not for moping and droning in. It is especially so for a young boy of your disposition, which requires a great deal of correcting; and to which no greater service can be done than to force it to conform to the ways of the working world, and to bend it and break it." "For stubbornness won't do here," said his sister. "What it wants, is, to be crushed. And crushed it must be. Shall be, too!" He gave her a look, half in remonstrance, half in approval, and went on: "I suppose you know, David, that I am not rich. At any rate, you know it now. You have received some considerable education already. Education is costly; and even if it were not, and I could afford it, I am of opinion that it would not be at all advantageous to you to be kept at a school. What is before you, is a fight with the world; and the sooner you begin it, the better." I think it occurred to me that I had already begun it, in my poor way: but it occurs to me now, whether or no. "You have heard 'the counting-house' mentioned sometimes," said Mr. Murdstone. "The counting-house, sir?" I repeated. "Of Murdstone and Grinby, in the wine trade," he replied. I suppose I looked uncertain, for he went on hastily: "You have heard the 'counting-house' mentioned, or the business, or the cellars, or the wharf, or something about it." "I think I have heard the business mentioned, sir," I said, remembering what I vaguely knew of his and his sister's resources. "But I don't know when." "It does not matter when," he returned. "Mr. Quinion manages that business." I glanced at the latter deferentially as he stood looking out of window. "Mr. Quinion suggests that it gives employment to some other boys, and that he sees no reason why it shouldn't, on the same terms, give employment to you." "He having," Mr. Quinion observed in a low voice, and half turning round, "no other prospect, Murdstone." Mr. Murdstone, with an impatient, even an angry gesture, resumed, without noticing what he had said: "Those terms are, that you will earn enough for yourself to provide for your eating and drinking, and pocket-money. Your lodging (which I have arranged for) will be paid by me. So will your washing--" "--Which will be kept down to my estimate," said his sister. "Your clothes will be looked after for you, too," said Mr. Murdstone; "as you will not be able, yet awhile, to get them for yourself. So you are now going to London, David, with Mr. Quinion, to begin the world on your own account." "In short, you are provided for," observed his sister; "and will please to do your duty." Though I quite understood that the purpose of this announcement was to get rid of me, I have no distinct remembrance whether it pleased or frightened me. My impression is, that I was in a state of confusion about it, and, oscillating between the two points, touched neither. Nor had I much time for the clearing of my thoughts, as Mr. Quinion was to go upon the morrow. Behold me, on the morrow, in a much-worn little white hat, with a black crape round it for my mother, a black jacket, and a pair of hard stiff corduroy trousers--which Miss Murdstone considered the best armour for the legs in that fight with the world which was now to come off: behold me so attired, and with my little worldly all before me in a small trunk, sitting, a lone lorn child (as Mrs. Gummidge might have said), in the postchaise that was carrying Mr. Quinion to the London coach at Yarmouth! See, how our house and church are lessening in the distance; how the grave beneath the tree is blotted out by intervening objects; how the spire points upward from my old playground no more, and the sky is empty! CHAPTER XI. I BEGIN LIFE ON MY OWN ACCOUNT, AND DON'T LIKE IT. I know enough of the world now, to have almost lost the capacity of being much surprised by anything; but it is matter of some surprise to me, even now, that I can have been so easily thrown away at such an age. A child of excellent abilities, and with strong powers of observation, quick, eager, delicate, and soon hurt bodily or mentally, it seems wonderful to me that nobody should have made any sign in my behalf. But none was made; and I became, at ten years old, a little labouring hind in the service of Murdstone and Grinby. Murdstone and Grinby's warehouse was at the water side. It was down in Blackfriars. Modern improvements have altered the place; but it was the last house at the bottom of a narrow street, curving down hill to the river, with some stairs at the end, where people took boat. It was a crazy old house with a wharf of its own, abutting on the water when the tide was in, and on the mud when the tide was out, and literally overrun with rats. Its panelled rooms, discolored with the dirt and smoke of a hundred years, I dare say; its decaying floors and staircase; the squeaking and scuffling of the old grey rats down in the cellars; and the dirt and rottenness of the place; are things, not of many years ago, in my mind, but of the present instant. They are all before me, just as they were in the evil hour when I went among them for the first time, with my trembling hand in Mr. Quinion's. Murdstone and Grinby's trade was among a good many kinds of people, but an important branch of it was the supply of wines and spirits to certain packet ships. I forget now where they chiefly went, but I think there were some among them that made voyages both to the East and West Indies. I know that a great many empty bottles were one of the consequences of this traffic, and that certain men and boys were employed to examine them against the light, and reject those that were flawed, and to rinse and wash them. When the empty bottles ran short, there were labels to be pasted on full ones, or corks to be fitted to them, or seals to be put upon the corks, or finished bottles to be packed in casks. All this work was my work, and of the boys employed upon it I was one. There were three or four of us, counting me. My working place was established in a corner of the warehouse, where Mr. Quinion could see me, when he chose to stand up on the bottom rail of his stool in the counting-house, and look at me through a window above the desk. Hither, on the first morning of my so auspiciously beginning life on my own account, the oldest of the regular boys was summoned to show me my business. His name was Mick Walker, and he wore a ragged apron and a paper cap. He informed me that his father was a bargeman, and walked, in a black velvet head-dress, in the Lord Mayor's Show. He also informed me that our principal associate would be another boy whom he introduced by the--to me--extraordinary name of Mealy Potatoes. I discovered, however, that this youth had not been christened by that name, but that it had been bestowed upon him in the warehouse, on account of his complexion, which was pale or mealy. Mealy's father was a waterman, who had the additional distinction of being a fireman, and was engaged as such at one of the large theatres; where some young relation of Mealy's--I think his little sister--did Imps in the Pantomimes. No words can express the secret agony of my soul as I sunk into this companionship; compared these henceforth every-day associates with those of my happier childhood--not to say with Steerforth, Traddles, and the rest of those boys; and felt my hopes of growing up to be a learned and distinguished man, crushed in my bosom. The deep remembrance of the sense I had, of being utterly without hope now; of the shame I felt in my position; of the misery it was to my young heart to believe that day by day what I had learned, and thought, and delighted in, and raised my fancy and my emulation up by, would pass away from me, little by little, never to be brought back any more; cannot be written. As often as Mick Walker went away in the course of that forenoon, I mingled my tears with the water in which I was washing the bottles; and sobbed as if there were a flaw in my own breast, and it were in danger of bursting. The counting-house clock was at half-past twelve, and there was general preparation for going to dinner, when Mr. Quinion tapped at the counting-house window, and beckoned to me to go in. I went in, and found there a stoutish, middle-aged person, in a brown surtout and black tights and shoes, with no more hair upon his head (which was a large one, and very shining) than there is upon an egg, and with a very extensive face, which he turned full upon me. His clothes were shabby, but he had an imposing shirt-collar on. He carried a jaunty sort of a stick, with a large pair of rusty tassels to it; and a quizzing-glass hung outside his coat,--for ornament, I afterwards found, as he very seldom looked through it, and couldn't see anything when he did. "This," said Mr. Quinion, in allusion to myself, "is he." "This," said the stranger, with a certain condescending roll in his voice, and a certain indescribable air of doing something genteel, which impressed me very much, "is Master Copperfield. I hope I see you well, sir?" I said I was very well, and hoped he was. I was sufficiently ill at ease, Heaven knows; but it was not in my nature to complain much at that time of my life, so I said I was very well, and hoped he was. "I am," said the stranger, "thank Heaven, quite well. I have received a letter from Mr. Murdstone, in which he mentions that he would desire me to receive into an apartment in the rear of my house, which is at present unoccupied--and is, in short, to be let as a--in short," said the stranger, with a smile and in a burst of confidence, "as a bed-room--the young beginner whom I have now the pleasure to--" and the stranger waved his hand, and settled his chin in his shirt collar. "This is Mr. Micawber," said Mr. Quinion to me. "Ahem!" said the stranger, "that is my name." "Mr. Micawber," said Mr. Quinion, "is known to Mr. Murdstone. He takes orders for us on commission, when he can get any. He has been written to by Mr. Murdstone, on the subject of your lodgings, and he will receive you as a lodger." "My address," said Mr. Micawber, "is Windsor Terrace, City Road. I--in short," said Mr. Micawber, with the same genteel air, and in another burst of confidence--"I live there." I made him a bow. "Under the impression," said Mr. Micawber, "that your peregrinations in this metropolis have not as yet been extensive, and that you might have some difficulty in penetrating the arcana of the Modern Babylon in the direction of the City Road--in short," said Mr. Micawber, in another burst of confidence, "that you might lose yourself--I shall be happy to call this evening, and install you in the knowledge of the nearest way." I thanked him with all my heart, for it was friendly in him to offer to take that trouble. "At what hour," said Mr. Micawber, "shall I--" "At about eight," said Mr. Quinion. "At about eight," said Mr. Micawber. "I beg to wish you good day, Mr. Quinion. I will intrude no longer." So he put on his hat, and went out with his cane under his arm: very upright, and humming a tune when he was clear of the counting-house. Mr. Quinion then formally engaged me to be as useful as I could in the warehouse of Murdstone and Grinby, at a salary, I think, of six shillings a week. I am not clear whether it was six or seven. I am inclined to believe, from my uncertainty on this head, that it was six at first and seven afterwards. He paid me a week down (from his own pocket, I believe), and I gave Mealy sixpence out of it to get my trunk carried to Windsor Terrace at night: it being too heavy for my strength, small as it was. I paid sixpence more for my dinner, which was a meat pie and a turn at a neighbouring pump; and passed the hour which was allowed for that meal, in walking about the streets. At the appointed time in the evening, Mr. Micawber reappeared. I washed my hands and face, to do the greater honour to his gentility, and we walked to our house, as I suppose I must now call it, together; Mr. Micawber impressing the names of streets, and the shapes of corner houses upon me, as we went along, that I might find my way back, easily, in the morning. Arrived at his house in Windsor Terrace (which I noticed was shabby like himself, but also, like himself, made all the show it could), he presented me to Mrs. Micawber, a thin and faded lady, not at all young, who was sitting in

clara

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

with them; you had better do it yourself." But here Peggotty, who had been going about from one to another in a hurried way, kissing everybody, called out from the cart, in which we all were by this time (Em'ly and I on two little chairs, side by side), that Mrs. Gummidge must do it. So Mrs. Gummidge did it; and, I am sorry to relate, cast a damp upon the festive character of our departure, by immediately bursting into tears, and sinking subdued into the arms of Ham, with the declaration that she knowed she was a burden, and had better be carried to the House at once. Which I really thought was a sensible idea, that Ham might have acted on. [Illustration: Mrs. Gummidge casts a damp on our departure.] Away we went, however, on our holiday excursion; and the first thing we did was to stop at a church, where Mr. Barkis tied the horse to some rails, and went in with Peggotty, leaving little Em'ly and me alone in the chaise. I took that occasion to put my arm round Em'ly's waist, and propose that as I was going away so very soon now, we should determine to be very affectionate to one another, and very happy, all day. Little Em'ly consenting, and allowing me to kiss her, I became desperate; informing her, I recollect, that I never could love another, and that I was prepared to shed the blood of anybody who should aspire to her affections. How merry little Em'ly made herself about it! With what a demure assumption of being immensely older and wiser than I, the fairy little woman said I was "a silly boy;" and then laughed so charmingly that I forgot the pain of being called by that disparaging name, in the pleasure of looking at her. Mr. Barkis and Peggotty were a good while in the church, but came out at last, and then we drove away into the country. As we were going along, Mr. Barkis turned to me, and said, with a wink,--by-the-by, I should hardly have thought, before, that he _could_ wink: "What name was it as I wrote up in the cart?" "Clara Peggotty," I answered. "What name would it be as I should write up now, if there was a tilt here?" "Clara Peggotty, again?" I suggested. "Clara Peggotty BARKIS!" he returned, and burst into a roar of laughter that shook the chaise. In a word, they were married, and had gone into the church for no other purpose. Peggotty was resolved that it should be quietly done; and the clerk had given her away, and there had been no witnesses of the ceremony. She was a little confused when Mr. Barkis made this abrupt announcement of their union, and could not hug me enough in token of her unimpaired affection; but she soon became herself again, and said she was very glad it was over. We drove to a little inn in a bye road, where we were expected, and where we had a very comfortable dinner, and passed the day with great satisfaction. If Peggotty had been married every day for the last ten years, she could hardly have been more at her ease about it; it made no sort of difference in her: she was just the same as ever, and went out for a stroll with little Em'ly and me before tea, while Mr. Barkis philosophically smoked his pipe, and enjoyed himself, I suppose, with the contemplation of his happiness. If so, it sharpened his appetite; for I distinctly call to mind that, although he had eaten a good deal of pork and greens at dinner, and had finished off with a fowl or two, he was obliged to have cold boiled bacon for tea, and disposed of a large quantity without any emotion. I have often thought, since, what an odd, innocent, out-of-the-way kind of wedding it must have been! We got into the chaise again soon after dark, and drove cosily back, looking up at the stars, and talking about them. I was their chief exponent, and opened Mr. Barkis's mind to an amazing extent. I told him all I knew, but he would have believed anything I might have taken it into my head to impart to him; for he had a profound veneration for my abilities, and informed his wife in my hearing, on that very occasion, that I was "a young Roeshus"--by which I think he meant, prodigy. When we had exhausted the subject of the stars, or rather when I had exhausted the mental faculties of Mr. Barkis, little Em'ly and I made a cloak of an old wrapper, and sat under it for the rest of the journey. Ah, how I loved her! What happiness (I thought) if we were married, and were going away anywhere to live among the trees and in the fields, never growing older, never growing wiser, children ever, rambling hand in hand through sunshine and among flowery meadows, laying down our heads on moss at night, in a sweet sleep of purity and peace, and buried by the birds when we were dead! Some such picture, with no real world in it, bright with the light of our innocence, and vague as the stars afar off, was in my mind all the way. I am glad to think there were two such guileless hearts at Peggotty's marriage as little Em'ly's and mine. I am glad to think the Loves and Graces took such airy forms in its homely procession. Well, we came to the old boat again in good time at night; and there Mr. and Mrs. Barkis bade us good-bye, and drove away snugly to their own home. I felt then, for the first time, that I had lost Peggotty. I should have gone to bed with a sore heart indeed under any other roof but that which sheltered little Em'ly's head. Mr. Peggotty and Ham knew what was in my thoughts as well as I did, and were ready with some supper and their hospitable faces to drive it away. Little Em'ly came and sat beside me on the locker, for the only time in all that visit; and it was altogether a wonderful close to a wonderful day. It was a night tide; and soon after we went to bed, Mr. Peggotty and Ham went out to fish. I felt very brave at being left alone in the solitary house, the protector of Em'ly and Mrs. Gummidge, and only wished that a lion or a serpent, or any ill-disposed monster, would make an attack upon us, that I might destroy him, and cover myself with glory. But as nothing of the sort happened to be walking about on Yarmouth flats that night, I provided the best substitute I could by dreaming of dragons until morning. With morning came Peggotty; who called to me, as usual, under my window as if Mr. Barkis the carrier had been from first to last a dream too. After breakfast she took me to her own home, and a beautiful little home it was. Of all the moveables in it, I must have been most impressed by a certain old bureau of some dark wood in the parlor (the tile-floored kitchen was the general sitting-room), with a retreating top which opened, let down, and became a desk, within which, was a large quarto edition of Fox's Book of Martyrs. This precious volume, of which I do not recollect one word, I immediately discovered and immediately applied myself to; and I never visited the house afterwards, but I kneeled on a chair, opened the casket where this gem was enshrined, spread my arms over the desk, and fell to devouring the book afresh. I was chiefly edified, I am afraid, by the pictures, which were numerous, and represented all kinds of dismal horrors; but the Martyrs and Peggotty's house have been inseparable in my mind ever since, and are now. I took leave of Mr. Peggotty, and Ham, and Mrs. Gummidge, and little Em'ly, that day; and passed the night at Peggotty's, in a little room in the roof (with the crocodile-book on a shelf by the bed's head) which was to be always mine, Peggotty said, and should always be kept for me in exactly the same state. "Young or old, Davy dear, as long as I am alive and have this house over my head," said Peggotty, "you shall find it as if I expected you here directly minute. I shall keep it every day, as I used to keep your old little room, my darling; and if you was to go to China, you might think of it as being kept just the same, all the time you were away." I felt the truth and constancy of my dear old nurse, with all my heart, and thanked her as well as I could. That was not very well, for she spoke to me thus, with her arms round my neck, in the morning, and I was going home in the morning, and I went home in the morning, with herself and Mr. Barkis in the cart. They left me at the gate, not easily or lightly; and it was a strange sight to me to see the cart go on, taking Peggotty away, and leaving me under the old elm-trees looking at the house, in which there was no face to look on mine with love or liking any more. And now I fell into a state of neglect, which I cannot look back upon without compassion. I fell at once into a solitary condition,--apart from all friendly notice, apart from the society of all other boys of my own age, apart from all companionship but my own spiritless thoughts,--which seems to cast its gloom upon this paper as I write. What would I have given, to have been sent to the hardest school that ever was kept!--to have been taught something, anyhow, anywhere! No such hope dawned upon me. They disliked me; and they sullenly, sternly, steadily, overlooked me. I think Mr. Murdstone's means were straitened at about this time; but it is little to the purpose. He could not bear me; and in putting me from him he tried, as I believe, to put away the notion that I had any claim upon him--and succeeded. I was not actively ill-used. I was not beaten, or starved; but the wrong that was done to me had no intervals of relenting, and was done in a systematic, passionless manner. Day after day, week after week, month after month, I was coldly neglected. I wonder sometimes, when I think of it, what they would have done if I had been taken with an illness; whether I should have lain down in my lonely room, and languished through it in my usual solitary way, or whether anybody would have helped me out. When Mr. and Miss Murdstone were at home, I took my meals with them; in their absence, I ate and drank by myself. At all times I lounged about the house and neighbourhood quite disregarded, except that they were jealous of my making any friends: thinking, perhaps, that, if I did, I might complain to some one. For this reason, though Mr. Chillip often asked me to go and see him (he was a widower, having, some years before that, lost a little small light-haired wife, whom I can just remember connecting in my own thoughts with a pale tortoise-shell cat), it was but seldom that I enjoyed the happiness of passing an afternoon in his closet of a surgery; reading some book that was new to me, with the smell of the whole pharmacopoeia coming up my nose, or pounding something in a mortar under his mild directions. For the same reason, added no doubt to the old dislike of her, I was seldom allowed to visit Peggotty. Faithful to her promise, she either came to see me, or met me somewhere near, once every week, and never empty-handed; but many and bitter were the disappointments I had, in being refused permission to pay a visit to her at her house. Some few times, however, at long intervals, I was allowed to go there; and then I found out that Mr. Barkis was something of a miser, or as Peggotty dutifully expressed it, was "a little near," and kept a heap of money in a box under his bed, which he pretended was only full of coats and trousers. In this coffer, his riches hid themselves with such a tenacious modesty, that the smallest instalments could only be tempted out by artifice; so that Peggotty had to prepare a long and elaborate scheme, a very Gunpowder Plot, for every Saturday's expenses. All this time I was so conscious of the waste of any promise I had given, and of my being utterly neglected, that I should have been perfectly miserable, I have no doubt, but for the old books. They were my only comfort; and I was as true to them as they were to me, and read them over and over I don't know how many times more. I now approach a period of my life, which I can never lose the remembrance of, while I remember any thing; and the recollection of which has often, without my invocation, come before me like a ghost, and haunted happier times. I had been out, one day, loitering somewhere, in the listless, meditative manner that my way of life engendered, when, turning the corner of a lane near our house, I came upon Mr. Murdstone walking with a gentleman. I was confused, and was going by them, when the gentleman cried: "What! Brooks!" "No, sir, David Copperfield," I said. "Don't tell me. You are Brooks," said the gentleman. "You are Brooks of Sheffield. That's your name." At these words, I observed the gentleman more attentively. His laugh coming to my remembrance too, I knew him to be Mr. Quinion, whom I had gone over to Lowestoft with Mr. Murdstone to see, before--it is no matter--I need not recall when. "And how do you get on, and where are you being educated, Brooks?" said Mr. Quinion. He had put his hand upon my shoulder, and turned me about, to walk with them. I did not know what to reply, and glanced dubiously at Mr. Murdstone. "He is at home at present," said the latter. "He is not being educated anywhere. I don't know what to do with him. He is a difficult subject." That old, double look was on me for a moment; and then his eye darkened with a frown, as it turned, in its aversion, elsewhere. "Humph!" said Mr. Quinion, looking at us both, I thought. "Fine weather!" Silence ensued, and I was considering how I could best disengage my shoulder from his hand, and go away, when he said: "I suppose you are a pretty sharp fellow still? Eh, Brooks?" "Aye! He is sharp enough," said Mr. Murdstone, impatiently. "You had better let him go. He will not thank you for troubling him." On this hint, Mr. Quinion released me, and I made the best of my way home. Looking back as I turned into the front garden, I saw Mr. Murdstone leaning against the wicket of the churchyard, and Mr. Quinion talking to him. They were both looking after me, and I felt that they were speaking of me. Mr. Quinion lay at our house that night. After breakfast, the next morning, I had put my chair away, and was going out of the room, when Mr. Murdstone called me back. He then gravely repaired to another table, where his sister sat herself at her desk. Mr. Quinion, with his hands in his pockets, stood looking out of window; and I stood looking at them all. "David," said Mr. Murdstone, "to the young this is a world for action; not for moping and droning in." --"As you do," added his sister. "Jane Murdstone, leave it to me, if you please. I say, David, to the young this is a world for action, and not for moping and droning in. It is especially so for a young boy of your disposition, which requires a great deal of correcting; and to which no greater service can be done than to force it to conform to the ways of the working world, and to bend it and break it." "For stubbornness won't do here," said his sister. "What it wants, is, to be crushed. And crushed it must be. Shall be, too!" He gave her a look, half in remonstrance, half in approval, and went on: "I suppose you know, David, that I am not rich. At any rate, you know it now. You have received some considerable education already. Education is costly; and even if it were not, and I could afford it, I am of opinion that it would not be at all advantageous to you to be kept at a school. What is before you, is a fight with the world; and the sooner you begin it, the better." I think it occurred to me that I had already begun it, in my poor way: but it occurs to me now, whether or no. "You have heard 'the counting-house' mentioned sometimes," said Mr. Murdstone. "The counting-house, sir?" I repeated. "Of Murdstone and Grinby, in the wine trade," he replied. I suppose I looked uncertain, for he went on hastily: "You have heard the 'counting-house' mentioned, or the business, or the cellars, or the wharf, or something about it." "I think I have heard the business mentioned, sir," I said, remembering what I vaguely knew of his and his sister's resources. "But I don't know when." "It does not matter when," he returned. "Mr. Quinion manages that business." I glanced at the latter deferentially as he stood looking out of window. "Mr. Quinion suggests that it gives employment to some other boys, and that he sees no reason why it shouldn't, on the same terms, give employment to you." "He having," Mr. Quinion observed in a low voice, and half turning round, "no other prospect, Murdstone." Mr. Murdstone, with an impatient, even an angry gesture, resumed, without noticing what he had said: "Those terms are, that you will earn enough for yourself to provide for your eating and drinking, and pocket-money. Your lodging (which I have arranged for) will be paid by me. So will your washing--" "--Which will be kept down to my estimate," said his sister. "Your clothes will be looked after for you, too," said Mr. Murdstone; "as you will not be able, yet awhile, to get them for yourself. So you are now going to London, David, with Mr. Quinion, to begin the world on your own account." "In short, you are provided for," observed his sister; "and will please to do your duty." Though I quite understood that the purpose of this announcement was to get rid of me, I have no distinct remembrance whether it pleased or frightened me. My impression is, that I was in a state of confusion about it, and, oscillating between the two points, touched neither. Nor had I much time for the clearing of my thoughts, as Mr. Quinion was to go upon the morrow. Behold me, on the morrow, in a much-worn little white hat, with a black crape round it for my mother, a black jacket, and a pair of hard stiff corduroy trousers--which Miss Murdstone considered the best armour for the legs in that fight with the world which was now to come off: behold me so attired, and with my little worldly all before me in a small trunk, sitting, a lone lorn child (as Mrs. Gummidge might have said), in the postchaise that was carrying Mr. Quinion to the London coach at Yarmouth! See, how our house and church are lessening in the distance; how the grave beneath the tree is blotted out by intervening objects; how the spire points upward from my old playground no more, and the sky is empty! CHAPTER XI. I BEGIN LIFE ON MY OWN ACCOUNT, AND DON'T LIKE IT. I know enough of the world now, to have almost lost the capacity of being much surprised by anything; but it is matter of some surprise to me, even now, that I can have been so easily thrown away at such an age. A child of excellent abilities, and with strong powers of observation, quick, eager, delicate, and soon hurt bodily or mentally, it seems wonderful to me that nobody should have made any sign in my behalf. But none was made; and I became, at ten years old, a little labouring hind in the service of Murdstone and Grinby. Murdstone and Grinby's warehouse was at the water side. It was down in Blackfriars. Modern improvements have altered the place; but it was the last house at the bottom of a narrow street, curving down hill to the river, with some stairs at the end, where people took boat. It was a crazy old house with a wharf of its own, abutting on the water when the tide was in, and on the mud when the tide was out, and literally overrun with rats. Its panelled rooms, discolored with the dirt and smoke of a hundred years, I dare say; its decaying floors and staircase; the squeaking and scuffling of the old grey rats down in the cellars; and the dirt and rottenness of the place; are things, not of many years ago, in my mind, but of the present instant. They are all before me, just as they were in the evil hour when I went among them for the first time, with my trembling hand in Mr. Quinion's. Murdstone and Grinby's trade was among a good many kinds of people, but an important branch of it was the supply of wines and spirits to certain packet ships. I forget now where they chiefly went, but I think there were some among them that made voyages both to the East and West Indies. I know that a great many empty bottles were one of the consequences of this traffic, and that certain men and boys were employed to examine them against the light, and reject those that were flawed, and to rinse and wash them. When the empty bottles ran short, there were labels to be pasted on full ones, or corks to be fitted to them, or seals to be put upon the corks, or finished bottles to be packed in casks. All this work was my work, and of the boys employed upon it I was one. There were three or four of us, counting me. My working place was established in a corner of the warehouse, where Mr. Quinion could see me, when he chose to stand up on the bottom rail of his stool in the counting-house, and look at me through a window above the desk. Hither, on the first morning of my so auspiciously beginning life on my own account, the oldest of the regular boys was summoned to show me my business. His name was Mick Walker, and he wore a ragged apron and a paper cap. He informed me that his father was a bargeman, and walked, in a black velvet head-dress, in the Lord Mayor's Show. He also informed me that our principal associate would be another boy whom he introduced by the--to me--extraordinary name of Mealy Potatoes. I discovered, however, that this youth had not been christened by that name, but that it had been bestowed upon him in the warehouse, on account of his complexion, which was pale or mealy. Mealy's father was a waterman, who had the additional distinction of being a fireman, and was engaged as such at one of the large theatres; where some young relation of Mealy's--I think his little sister--did Imps in the Pantomimes. No words can express the secret agony of my soul as I sunk into this companionship; compared these henceforth every-day associates with those of my happier childhood--not to say with Steerforth, Traddles, and the rest of those boys; and felt my hopes of growing up to be a learned and distinguished man, crushed in my bosom. The deep remembrance of the sense I had, of being utterly without hope now; of the shame I felt in my position; of the misery it was to my young heart to believe that day by day what I had learned, and thought, and delighted in, and raised my fancy and my emulation up by, would pass away from me, little by little, never to be brought back any more; cannot be written. As often as Mick Walker went away in the course of that forenoon, I mingled my tears with the water in which I was washing the bottles; and sobbed as if there were a flaw in my own breast, and it were in danger of bursting. The counting-house clock was at half-past twelve, and there was general preparation for going to dinner, when Mr. Quinion tapped at the counting-house window, and beckoned to me to go in. I went in, and found there a stoutish, middle-aged person, in a brown surtout and black tights and shoes, with no more hair upon his head (which was a large one, and very shining) than there is upon an egg, and with a very extensive face, which he turned full upon me. His clothes were shabby, but he had an imposing shirt-collar on. He carried a jaunty sort of a stick, with a large pair of rusty tassels to it; and a quizzing-glass hung outside his coat,--for ornament, I afterwards found, as he very seldom looked through it, and couldn't see anything when he did. "This," said Mr. Quinion, in allusion to myself, "is he." "This," said the stranger, with a certain condescending roll in his voice, and a certain indescribable air of doing something genteel, which impressed me very much, "is Master Copperfield. I hope I see you well, sir?" I said I was very well, and hoped he was. I was sufficiently ill at ease, Heaven knows; but it was not in my nature to complain much at that time of my life, so I said I was very well, and hoped he was. "I am," said the stranger, "thank Heaven, quite well. I have received a letter from Mr. Murdstone, in which he mentions that he would desire me to receive into an apartment in the rear of my house, which is at present unoccupied--and is, in short, to be let as a--in short," said the stranger, with a smile and in a burst of confidence, "as a bed-room--the young beginner whom I have now the pleasure to--" and the stranger waved his hand, and settled his chin in his shirt collar. "This is Mr. Micawber," said Mr. Quinion to me. "Ahem!" said the stranger, "that is my name." "Mr. Micawber," said Mr. Quinion, "is known to Mr. Murdstone. He takes orders for us on commission, when he can get any. He has been written to by Mr. Murdstone, on the subject of your lodgings, and he will receive you as a lodger." "My address," said Mr. Micawber, "is Windsor Terrace, City Road. I--in short," said Mr. Micawber, with the same genteel air, and in another burst of confidence--"I live there." I made him a bow. "Under the impression," said Mr. Micawber, "that your peregrinations in this metropolis have not as yet been extensive, and that you might have some difficulty in penetrating the arcana of the Modern Babylon in the direction of the City Road--in short," said Mr. Micawber, in another burst of confidence, "that you might lose yourself--I shall be happy to call this evening, and install you in the knowledge of the nearest way." I thanked him with all my heart, for it was friendly in him to offer to take that trouble. "At what hour," said Mr. Micawber, "shall I--" "At about eight," said Mr. Quinion. "At about eight," said Mr. Micawber. "I beg to wish you good day, Mr. Quinion. I will intrude no longer." So he put on his hat, and went out with his cane under his arm: very upright, and humming a tune when he was clear of the counting-house. Mr. Quinion then formally engaged me to be as useful as I could in the warehouse of Murdstone and Grinby, at a salary, I think, of six shillings a week. I am not clear whether it was six or seven. I am inclined to believe, from my uncertainty on this head, that it was six at first and seven afterwards. He paid me a week down (from his own pocket, I believe), and I gave Mealy sixpence out of it to get my trunk carried to Windsor Terrace at night: it being too heavy for my strength, small as it was. I paid sixpence more for my dinner, which was a meat pie and a turn at a neighbouring pump; and passed the hour which was allowed for that meal, in walking about the streets. At the appointed time in the evening, Mr. Micawber reappeared. I washed my hands and face, to do the greater honour to his gentility, and we walked to our house, as I suppose I must now call it, together; Mr. Micawber impressing the names of streets, and the shapes of corner houses upon me, as we went along, that I might find my way back, easily, in the morning. Arrived at his house in Windsor Terrace (which I noticed was shabby like himself, but also, like himself, made all the show it could), he presented me to Mrs. Micawber, a thin and faded lady, not at all young, who was sitting in

truer

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

with them; you had better do it yourself." But here Peggotty, who had been going about from one to another in a hurried way, kissing everybody, called out from the cart, in which we all were by this time (Em'ly and I on two little chairs, side by side), that Mrs. Gummidge must do it. So Mrs. Gummidge did it; and, I am sorry to relate, cast a damp upon the festive character of our departure, by immediately bursting into tears, and sinking subdued into the arms of Ham, with the declaration that she knowed she was a burden, and had better be carried to the House at once. Which I really thought was a sensible idea, that Ham might have acted on. [Illustration: Mrs. Gummidge casts a damp on our departure.] Away we went, however, on our holiday excursion; and the first thing we did was to stop at a church, where Mr. Barkis tied the horse to some rails, and went in with Peggotty, leaving little Em'ly and me alone in the chaise. I took that occasion to put my arm round Em'ly's waist, and propose that as I was going away so very soon now, we should determine to be very affectionate to one another, and very happy, all day. Little Em'ly consenting, and allowing me to kiss her, I became desperate; informing her, I recollect, that I never could love another, and that I was prepared to shed the blood of anybody who should aspire to her affections. How merry little Em'ly made herself about it! With what a demure assumption of being immensely older and wiser than I, the fairy little woman said I was "a silly boy;" and then laughed so charmingly that I forgot the pain of being called by that disparaging name, in the pleasure of looking at her. Mr. Barkis and Peggotty were a good while in the church, but came out at last, and then we drove away into the country. As we were going along, Mr. Barkis turned to me, and said, with a wink,--by-the-by, I should hardly have thought, before, that he _could_ wink: "What name was it as I wrote up in the cart?" "Clara Peggotty," I answered. "What name would it be as I should write up now, if there was a tilt here?" "Clara Peggotty, again?" I suggested. "Clara Peggotty BARKIS!" he returned, and burst into a roar of laughter that shook the chaise. In a word, they were married, and had gone into the church for no other purpose. Peggotty was resolved that it should be quietly done; and the clerk had given her away, and there had been no witnesses of the ceremony. She was a little confused when Mr. Barkis made this abrupt announcement of their union, and could not hug me enough in token of her unimpaired affection; but she soon became herself again, and said she was very glad it was over. We drove to a little inn in a bye road, where we were expected, and where we had a very comfortable dinner, and passed the day with great satisfaction. If Peggotty had been married every day for the last ten years, she could hardly have been more at her ease about it; it made no sort of difference in her: she was just the same as ever, and went out for a stroll with little Em'ly and me before tea, while Mr. Barkis philosophically smoked his pipe, and enjoyed himself, I suppose, with the contemplation of his happiness. If so, it sharpened his appetite; for I distinctly call to mind that, although he had eaten a good deal of pork and greens at dinner, and had finished off with a fowl or two, he was obliged to have cold boiled bacon for tea, and disposed of a large quantity without any emotion. I have often thought, since, what an odd, innocent, out-of-the-way kind of wedding it must have been! We got into the chaise again soon after dark, and drove cosily back, looking up at the stars, and talking about them. I was their chief exponent, and opened Mr. Barkis's mind to an amazing extent. I told him all I knew, but he would have believed anything I might have taken it into my head to impart to him; for he had a profound veneration for my abilities, and informed his wife in my hearing, on that very occasion, that I was "a young Roeshus"--by which I think he meant, prodigy. When we had exhausted the subject of the stars, or rather when I had exhausted the mental faculties of Mr. Barkis, little Em'ly and I made a cloak of an old wrapper, and sat under it for the rest of the journey. Ah, how I loved her! What happiness (I thought) if we were married, and were going away anywhere to live among the trees and in the fields, never growing older, never growing wiser, children ever, rambling hand in hand through sunshine and among flowery meadows, laying down our heads on moss at night, in a sweet sleep of purity and peace, and buried by the birds when we were dead! Some such picture, with no real world in it, bright with the light of our innocence, and vague as the stars afar off, was in my mind all the way. I am glad to think there were two such guileless hearts at Peggotty's marriage as little Em'ly's and mine. I am glad to think the Loves and Graces took such airy forms in its homely procession. Well, we came to the old boat again in good time at night; and there Mr. and Mrs. Barkis bade us good-bye, and drove away snugly to their own home. I felt then, for the first time, that I had lost Peggotty. I should have gone to bed with a sore heart indeed under any other roof but that which sheltered little Em'ly's head. Mr. Peggotty and Ham knew what was in my thoughts as well as I did, and were ready with some supper and their hospitable faces to drive it away. Little Em'ly came and sat beside me on the locker, for the only time in all that visit; and it was altogether a wonderful close to a wonderful day. It was a night tide; and soon after we went to bed, Mr. Peggotty and Ham went out to fish. I felt very brave at being left alone in the solitary house, the protector of Em'ly and Mrs. Gummidge, and only wished that a lion or a serpent, or any ill-disposed monster, would make an attack upon us, that I might destroy him, and cover myself with glory. But as nothing of the sort happened to be walking about on Yarmouth flats that night, I provided the best substitute I could by dreaming of dragons until morning. With morning came Peggotty; who called to me, as usual, under my window as if Mr. Barkis the carrier had been from first to last a dream too. After breakfast she took me to her own home, and a beautiful little home it was. Of all the moveables in it, I must have been most impressed by a certain old bureau of some dark wood in the parlor (the tile-floored kitchen was the general sitting-room), with a retreating top which opened, let down, and became a desk, within which, was a large quarto edition of Fox's Book of Martyrs. This precious volume, of which I do not recollect one word, I immediately discovered and immediately applied myself to; and I never visited the house afterwards, but I kneeled on a chair, opened the casket where this gem was enshrined, spread my arms over the desk, and fell to devouring the book afresh. I was chiefly edified, I am afraid, by the pictures, which were numerous, and represented all kinds of dismal horrors; but the Martyrs and Peggotty's house have been inseparable in my mind ever since, and are now. I took leave of Mr. Peggotty, and Ham, and Mrs. Gummidge, and little Em'ly, that day; and passed the night at Peggotty's, in a little room in the roof (with the crocodile-book on a shelf by the bed's head) which was to be always mine, Peggotty said, and should always be kept for me in exactly the same state. "Young or old, Davy dear, as long as I am alive and have this house over my head," said Peggotty, "you shall find it as if I expected you here directly minute. I shall keep it every day, as I used to keep your old little room, my darling; and if you was to go to China, you might think of it as being kept just the same, all the time you were away." I felt the truth and constancy of my dear old nurse, with all my heart, and thanked her as well as I could. That was not very well, for she spoke to me thus, with her arms round my neck, in the morning, and I was going home in the morning, and I went home in the morning, with herself and Mr. Barkis in the cart. They left me at the gate, not easily or lightly; and it was a strange sight to me to see the cart go on, taking Peggotty away, and leaving me under the old elm-trees looking at the house, in which there was no face to look on mine with love or liking any more. And now I fell into a state of neglect, which I cannot look back upon without compassion. I fell at once into a solitary condition,--apart from all friendly notice, apart from the society of all other boys of my own age, apart from all companionship but my own spiritless thoughts,--which seems to cast its gloom upon this paper as I write. What would I have given, to have been sent to the hardest school that ever was kept!--to have been taught something, anyhow, anywhere! No such hope dawned upon me. They disliked me; and they sullenly, sternly, steadily, overlooked me. I think Mr. Murdstone's means were straitened at about this time; but it is little to the purpose. He could not bear me; and in putting me from him he tried, as I believe, to put away the notion that I had any claim upon him--and succeeded. I was not actively ill-used. I was not beaten, or starved; but the wrong that was done to me had no intervals of relenting, and was done in a systematic, passionless manner. Day after day, week after week, month after month, I was coldly neglected. I wonder sometimes, when I think of it, what they would have done if I had been taken with an illness; whether I should have lain down in my lonely room, and languished through it in my usual solitary way, or whether anybody would have helped me out. When Mr. and Miss Murdstone were at home, I took my meals with them; in their absence, I ate and drank by myself. At all times I lounged about the house and neighbourhood quite disregarded, except that they were jealous of my making any friends: thinking, perhaps, that, if I did, I might complain to some one. For this reason, though Mr. Chillip often asked me to go and see him (he was a widower, having, some years before that, lost a little small light-haired wife, whom I can just remember connecting in my own thoughts with a pale tortoise-shell cat), it was but seldom that I enjoyed the happiness of passing an afternoon in his closet of a surgery; reading some book that was new to me, with the smell of the whole pharmacopoeia coming up my nose, or pounding something in a mortar under his mild directions. For the same reason, added no doubt to the old dislike of her, I was seldom allowed to visit Peggotty. Faithful to her promise, she either came to see me, or met me somewhere near, once every week, and never empty-handed; but many and bitter were the disappointments I had, in being refused permission to pay a visit to her at her house. Some few times, however, at long intervals, I was allowed to go there; and then I found out that Mr. Barkis was something of a miser, or as Peggotty dutifully expressed it, was "a little near," and kept a heap of money in a box under his bed, which he pretended was only full of coats and trousers. In this coffer, his riches hid themselves with such a tenacious modesty, that the smallest instalments could only be tempted out by artifice; so that Peggotty had to prepare a long and elaborate scheme, a very Gunpowder Plot, for every Saturday's expenses. All this time I was so conscious of the waste of any promise I had given, and of my being utterly neglected, that I should have been perfectly miserable, I have no doubt, but for the old books. They were my only comfort; and I was as true to them as they were to me, and read them over and over I don't know how many times more. I now approach a period of my life, which I can never lose the remembrance of, while I remember any thing; and the recollection of which has often, without my invocation, come before me like a ghost, and haunted happier times. I had been out, one day, loitering somewhere, in the listless, meditative manner that my way of life engendered, when, turning the corner of a lane near our house, I came upon Mr. Murdstone walking with a gentleman. I was confused, and was going by them, when the gentleman cried: "What! Brooks!" "No, sir, David Copperfield," I said. "Don't tell me. You are Brooks," said the gentleman. "You are Brooks of Sheffield. That's your name." At these words, I observed the gentleman more attentively. His laugh coming to my remembrance too, I knew him to be Mr. Quinion, whom I had gone over to Lowestoft with Mr. Murdstone to see, before--it is no matter--I need not recall when. "And how do you get on, and where are you being educated, Brooks?" said Mr. Quinion. He had put his hand upon my shoulder, and turned me about, to walk with them. I did not know what to reply, and glanced dubiously at Mr. Murdstone. "He is at home at present," said the latter. "He is not being educated anywhere. I don't know what to do with him. He is a difficult subject." That old, double look was on me for a moment; and then his eye darkened with a frown, as it turned, in its aversion, elsewhere. "Humph!" said Mr. Quinion, looking at us both, I thought. "Fine weather!" Silence ensued, and I was considering how I could best disengage my shoulder from his hand, and go away, when he said: "I suppose you are a pretty sharp fellow still? Eh, Brooks?" "Aye! He is sharp enough," said Mr. Murdstone, impatiently. "You had better let him go. He will not thank you for troubling him." On this hint, Mr. Quinion released me, and I made the best of my way home. Looking back as I turned into the front garden, I saw Mr. Murdstone leaning against the wicket of the churchyard, and Mr. Quinion talking to him. They were both looking after me, and I felt that they were speaking of me. Mr. Quinion lay at our house that night. After breakfast, the next morning, I had put my chair away, and was going out of the room, when Mr. Murdstone called me back. He then gravely repaired to another table, where his sister sat herself at her desk. Mr. Quinion, with his hands in his pockets, stood looking out of window; and I stood looking at them all. "David," said Mr. Murdstone, "to the young this is a world for action; not for moping and droning in." --"As you do," added his sister. "Jane Murdstone, leave it to me, if you please. I say, David, to the young this is a world for action, and not for moping and droning in. It is especially so for a young boy of your disposition, which requires a great deal of correcting; and to which no greater service can be done than to force it to conform to the ways of the working world, and to bend it and break it." "For stubbornness won't do here," said his sister. "What it wants, is, to be crushed. And crushed it must be. Shall be, too!" He gave her a look, half in remonstrance, half in approval, and went on: "I suppose you know, David, that I am not rich. At any rate, you know it now. You have received some considerable education already. Education is costly; and even if it were not, and I could afford it, I am of opinion that it would not be at all advantageous to you to be kept at a school. What is before you, is a fight with the world; and the sooner you begin it, the better." I think it occurred to me that I had already begun it, in my poor way: but it occurs to me now, whether or no. "You have heard 'the counting-house' mentioned sometimes," said Mr. Murdstone. "The counting-house, sir?" I repeated. "Of Murdstone and Grinby, in the wine trade," he replied. I suppose I looked uncertain, for he went on hastily: "You have heard the 'counting-house' mentioned, or the business, or the cellars, or the wharf, or something about it." "I think I have heard the business mentioned, sir," I said, remembering what I vaguely knew of his and his sister's resources. "But I don't know when." "It does not matter when," he returned. "Mr. Quinion manages that business." I glanced at the latter deferentially as he stood looking out of window. "Mr. Quinion suggests that it gives employment to some other boys, and that he sees no reason why it shouldn't, on the same terms, give employment to you." "He having," Mr. Quinion observed in a low voice, and half turning round, "no other prospect, Murdstone." Mr. Murdstone, with an impatient, even an angry gesture, resumed, without noticing what he had said: "Those terms are, that you will earn enough for yourself to provide for your eating and drinking, and pocket-money. Your lodging (which I have arranged for) will be paid by me. So will your washing--" "--Which will be kept down to my estimate," said his sister. "Your clothes will be looked after for you, too," said Mr. Murdstone; "as you will not be able, yet awhile, to get them for yourself. So you are now going to London, David, with Mr. Quinion, to begin the world on your own account." "In short, you are provided for," observed his sister; "and will please to do your duty." Though I quite understood that the purpose of this announcement was to get rid of me, I have no distinct remembrance whether it pleased or frightened me. My impression is, that I was in a state of confusion about it, and, oscillating between the two points, touched neither. Nor had I much time for the clearing of my thoughts, as Mr. Quinion was to go upon the morrow. Behold me, on the morrow, in a much-worn little white hat, with a black crape round it for my mother, a black jacket, and a pair of hard stiff corduroy trousers--which Miss Murdstone considered the best armour for the legs in that fight with the world which was now to come off: behold me so attired, and with my little worldly all before me in a small trunk, sitting, a lone lorn child (as Mrs. Gummidge might have said), in the postchaise that was carrying Mr. Quinion to the London coach at Yarmouth! See, how our house and church are lessening in the distance; how the grave beneath the tree is blotted out by intervening objects; how the spire points upward from my old playground no more, and the sky is empty! CHAPTER XI. I BEGIN LIFE ON MY OWN ACCOUNT, AND DON'T LIKE IT. I know enough of the world now, to have almost lost the capacity of being much surprised by anything; but it is matter of some surprise to me, even now, that I can have been so easily thrown away at such an age. A child of excellent abilities, and with strong powers of observation, quick, eager, delicate, and soon hurt bodily or mentally, it seems wonderful to me that nobody should have made any sign in my behalf. But none was made; and I became, at ten years old, a little labouring hind in the service of Murdstone and Grinby. Murdstone and Grinby's warehouse was at the water side. It was down in Blackfriars. Modern improvements have altered the place; but it was the last house at the bottom of a narrow street, curving down hill to the river, with some stairs at the end, where people took boat. It was a crazy old house with a wharf of its own, abutting on the water when the tide was in, and on the mud when the tide was out, and literally overrun with rats. Its panelled rooms, discolored with the dirt and smoke of a hundred years, I dare say; its decaying floors and staircase; the squeaking and scuffling of the old grey rats down in the cellars; and the dirt and rottenness of the place; are things, not of many years ago, in my mind, but of the present instant. They are all before me, just as they were in the evil hour when I went among them for the first time, with my trembling hand in Mr. Quinion's. Murdstone and Grinby's trade was among a good many kinds of people, but an important branch of it was the supply of wines and spirits to certain packet ships. I forget now where they chiefly went, but I think there were some among them that made voyages both to the East and West Indies. I know that a great many empty bottles were one of the consequences of this traffic, and that certain men and boys were employed to examine them against the light, and reject those that were flawed, and to rinse and wash them. When the empty bottles ran short, there were labels to be pasted on full ones, or corks to be fitted to them, or seals to be put upon the corks, or finished bottles to be packed in casks. All this work was my work, and of the boys employed upon it I was one. There were three or four of us, counting me. My working place was established in a corner of the warehouse, where Mr. Quinion could see me, when he chose to stand up on the bottom rail of his stool in the counting-house, and look at me through a window above the desk. Hither, on the first morning of my so auspiciously beginning life on my own account, the oldest of the regular boys was summoned to show me my business. His name was Mick Walker, and he wore a ragged apron and a paper cap. He informed me that his father was a bargeman, and walked, in a black velvet head-dress, in the Lord Mayor's Show. He also informed me that our principal associate would be another boy whom he introduced by the--to me--extraordinary name of Mealy Potatoes. I discovered, however, that this youth had not been christened by that name, but that it had been bestowed upon him in the warehouse, on account of his complexion, which was pale or mealy. Mealy's father was a waterman, who had the additional distinction of being a fireman, and was engaged as such at one of the large theatres; where some young relation of Mealy's--I think his little sister--did Imps in the Pantomimes. No words can express the secret agony of my soul as I sunk into this companionship; compared these henceforth every-day associates with those of my happier childhood--not to say with Steerforth, Traddles, and the rest of those boys; and felt my hopes of growing up to be a learned and distinguished man, crushed in my bosom. The deep remembrance of the sense I had, of being utterly without hope now; of the shame I felt in my position; of the misery it was to my young heart to believe that day by day what I had learned, and thought, and delighted in, and raised my fancy and my emulation up by, would pass away from me, little by little, never to be brought back any more; cannot be written. As often as Mick Walker went away in the course of that forenoon, I mingled my tears with the water in which I was washing the bottles; and sobbed as if there were a flaw in my own breast, and it were in danger of bursting. The counting-house clock was at half-past twelve, and there was general preparation for going to dinner, when Mr. Quinion tapped at the counting-house window, and beckoned to me to go in. I went in, and found there a stoutish, middle-aged person, in a brown surtout and black tights and shoes, with no more hair upon his head (which was a large one, and very shining) than there is upon an egg, and with a very extensive face, which he turned full upon me. His clothes were shabby, but he had an imposing shirt-collar on. He carried a jaunty sort of a stick, with a large pair of rusty tassels to it; and a quizzing-glass hung outside his coat,--for ornament, I afterwards found, as he very seldom looked through it, and couldn't see anything when he did. "This," said Mr. Quinion, in allusion to myself, "is he." "This," said the stranger, with a certain condescending roll in his voice, and a certain indescribable air of doing something genteel, which impressed me very much, "is Master Copperfield. I hope I see you well, sir?" I said I was very well, and hoped he was. I was sufficiently ill at ease, Heaven knows; but it was not in my nature to complain much at that time of my life, so I said I was very well, and hoped he was. "I am," said the stranger, "thank Heaven, quite well. I have received a letter from Mr. Murdstone, in which he mentions that he would desire me to receive into an apartment in the rear of my house, which is at present unoccupied--and is, in short, to be let as a--in short," said the stranger, with a smile and in a burst of confidence, "as a bed-room--the young beginner whom I have now the pleasure to--" and the stranger waved his hand, and settled his chin in his shirt collar. "This is Mr. Micawber," said Mr. Quinion to me. "Ahem!" said the stranger, "that is my name." "Mr. Micawber," said Mr. Quinion, "is known to Mr. Murdstone. He takes orders for us on commission, when he can get any. He has been written to by Mr. Murdstone, on the subject of your lodgings, and he will receive you as a lodger." "My address," said Mr. Micawber, "is Windsor Terrace, City Road. I--in short," said Mr. Micawber, with the same genteel air, and in another burst of confidence--"I live there." I made him a bow. "Under the impression," said Mr. Micawber, "that your peregrinations in this metropolis have not as yet been extensive, and that you might have some difficulty in penetrating the arcana of the Modern Babylon in the direction of the City Road--in short," said Mr. Micawber, in another burst of confidence, "that you might lose yourself--I shall be happy to call this evening, and install you in the knowledge of the nearest way." I thanked him with all my heart, for it was friendly in him to offer to take that trouble. "At what hour," said Mr. Micawber, "shall I--" "At about eight," said Mr. Quinion. "At about eight," said Mr. Micawber. "I beg to wish you good day, Mr. Quinion. I will intrude no longer." So he put on his hat, and went out with his cane under his arm: very upright, and humming a tune when he was clear of the counting-house. Mr. Quinion then formally engaged me to be as useful as I could in the warehouse of Murdstone and Grinby, at a salary, I think, of six shillings a week. I am not clear whether it was six or seven. I am inclined to believe, from my uncertainty on this head, that it was six at first and seven afterwards. He paid me a week down (from his own pocket, I believe), and I gave Mealy sixpence out of it to get my trunk carried to Windsor Terrace at night: it being too heavy for my strength, small as it was. I paid sixpence more for my dinner, which was a meat pie and a turn at a neighbouring pump; and passed the hour which was allowed for that meal, in walking about the streets. At the appointed time in the evening, Mr. Micawber reappeared. I washed my hands and face, to do the greater honour to his gentility, and we walked to our house, as I suppose I must now call it, together; Mr. Micawber impressing the names of streets, and the shapes of corner houses upon me, as we went along, that I might find my way back, easily, in the morning. Arrived at his house in Windsor Terrace (which I noticed was shabby like himself, but also, like himself, made all the show it could), he presented me to Mrs. Micawber, a thin and faded lady, not at all young, who was sitting in

serenely

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

with them; you had better do it yourself." But here Peggotty, who had been going about from one to another in a hurried way, kissing everybody, called out from the cart, in which we all were by this time (Em'ly and I on two little chairs, side by side), that Mrs. Gummidge must do it. So Mrs. Gummidge did it; and, I am sorry to relate, cast a damp upon the festive character of our departure, by immediately bursting into tears, and sinking subdued into the arms of Ham, with the declaration that she knowed she was a burden, and had better be carried to the House at once. Which I really thought was a sensible idea, that Ham might have acted on. [Illustration: Mrs. Gummidge casts a damp on our departure.] Away we went, however, on our holiday excursion; and the first thing we did was to stop at a church, where Mr. Barkis tied the horse to some rails, and went in with Peggotty, leaving little Em'ly and me alone in the chaise. I took that occasion to put my arm round Em'ly's waist, and propose that as I was going away so very soon now, we should determine to be very affectionate to one another, and very happy, all day. Little Em'ly consenting, and allowing me to kiss her, I became desperate; informing her, I recollect, that I never could love another, and that I was prepared to shed the blood of anybody who should aspire to her affections. How merry little Em'ly made herself about it! With what a demure assumption of being immensely older and wiser than I, the fairy little woman said I was "a silly boy;" and then laughed so charmingly that I forgot the pain of being called by that disparaging name, in the pleasure of looking at her. Mr. Barkis and Peggotty were a good while in the church, but came out at last, and then we drove away into the country. As we were going along, Mr. Barkis turned to me, and said, with a wink,--by-the-by, I should hardly have thought, before, that he _could_ wink: "What name was it as I wrote up in the cart?" "Clara Peggotty," I answered. "What name would it be as I should write up now, if there was a tilt here?" "Clara Peggotty, again?" I suggested. "Clara Peggotty BARKIS!" he returned, and burst into a roar of laughter that shook the chaise. In a word, they were married, and had gone into the church for no other purpose. Peggotty was resolved that it should be quietly done; and the clerk had given her away, and there had been no witnesses of the ceremony. She was a little confused when Mr. Barkis made this abrupt announcement of their union, and could not hug me enough in token of her unimpaired affection; but she soon became herself again, and said she was very glad it was over. We drove to a little inn in a bye road, where we were expected, and where we had a very comfortable dinner, and passed the day with great satisfaction. If Peggotty had been married every day for the last ten years, she could hardly have been more at her ease about it; it made no sort of difference in her: she was just the same as ever, and went out for a stroll with little Em'ly and me before tea, while Mr. Barkis philosophically smoked his pipe, and enjoyed himself, I suppose, with the contemplation of his happiness. If so, it sharpened his appetite; for I distinctly call to mind that, although he had eaten a good deal of pork and greens at dinner, and had finished off with a fowl or two, he was obliged to have cold boiled bacon for tea, and disposed of a large quantity without any emotion. I have often thought, since, what an odd, innocent, out-of-the-way kind of wedding it must have been! We got into the chaise again soon after dark, and drove cosily back, looking up at the stars, and talking about them. I was their chief exponent, and opened Mr. Barkis's mind to an amazing extent. I told him all I knew, but he would have believed anything I might have taken it into my head to impart to him; for he had a profound veneration for my abilities, and informed his wife in my hearing, on that very occasion, that I was "a young Roeshus"--by which I think he meant, prodigy. When we had exhausted the subject of the stars, or rather when I had exhausted the mental faculties of Mr. Barkis, little Em'ly and I made a cloak of an old wrapper, and sat under it for the rest of the journey. Ah, how I loved her! What happiness (I thought) if we were married, and were going away anywhere to live among the trees and in the fields, never growing older, never growing wiser, children ever, rambling hand in hand through sunshine and among flowery meadows, laying down our heads on moss at night, in a sweet sleep of purity and peace, and buried by the birds when we were dead! Some such picture, with no real world in it, bright with the light of our innocence, and vague as the stars afar off, was in my mind all the way. I am glad to think there were two such guileless hearts at Peggotty's marriage as little Em'ly's and mine. I am glad to think the Loves and Graces took such airy forms in its homely procession. Well, we came to the old boat again in good time at night; and there Mr. and Mrs. Barkis bade us good-bye, and drove away snugly to their own home. I felt then, for the first time, that I had lost Peggotty. I should have gone to bed with a sore heart indeed under any other roof but that which sheltered little Em'ly's head. Mr. Peggotty and Ham knew what was in my thoughts as well as I did, and were ready with some supper and their hospitable faces to drive it away. Little Em'ly came and sat beside me on the locker, for the only time in all that visit; and it was altogether a wonderful close to a wonderful day. It was a night tide; and soon after we went to bed, Mr. Peggotty and Ham went out to fish. I felt very brave at being left alone in the solitary house, the protector of Em'ly and Mrs. Gummidge, and only wished that a lion or a serpent, or any ill-disposed monster, would make an attack upon us, that I might destroy him, and cover myself with glory. But as nothing of the sort happened to be walking about on Yarmouth flats that night, I provided the best substitute I could by dreaming of dragons until morning. With morning came Peggotty; who called to me, as usual, under my window as if Mr. Barkis the carrier had been from first to last a dream too. After breakfast she took me to her own home, and a beautiful little home it was. Of all the moveables in it, I must have been most impressed by a certain old bureau of some dark wood in the parlor (the tile-floored kitchen was the general sitting-room), with a retreating top which opened, let down, and became a desk, within which, was a large quarto edition of Fox's Book of Martyrs. This precious volume, of which I do not recollect one word, I immediately discovered and immediately applied myself to; and I never visited the house afterwards, but I kneeled on a chair, opened the casket where this gem was enshrined, spread my arms over the desk, and fell to devouring the book afresh. I was chiefly edified, I am afraid, by the pictures, which were numerous, and represented all kinds of dismal horrors; but the Martyrs and Peggotty's house have been inseparable in my mind ever since, and are now. I took leave of Mr. Peggotty, and Ham, and Mrs. Gummidge, and little Em'ly, that day; and passed the night at Peggotty's, in a little room in the roof (with the crocodile-book on a shelf by the bed's head) which was to be always mine, Peggotty said, and should always be kept for me in exactly the same state. "Young or old, Davy dear, as long as I am alive and have this house over my head," said Peggotty, "you shall find it as if I expected you here directly minute. I shall keep it every day, as I used to keep your old little room, my darling; and if you was to go to China, you might think of it as being kept just the same, all the time you were away." I felt the truth and constancy of my dear old nurse, with all my heart, and thanked her as well as I could. That was not very well, for she spoke to me thus, with her arms round my neck, in the morning, and I was going home in the morning, and I went home in the morning, with herself and Mr. Barkis in the cart. They left me at the gate, not easily or lightly; and it was a strange sight to me to see the cart go on, taking Peggotty away, and leaving me under the old elm-trees looking at the house, in which there was no face to look on mine with love or liking any more. And now I fell into a state of neglect, which I cannot look back upon without compassion. I fell at once into a solitary condition,--apart from all friendly notice, apart from the society of all other boys of my own age, apart from all companionship but my own spiritless thoughts,--which seems to cast its gloom upon this paper as I write. What would I have given, to have been sent to the hardest school that ever was kept!--to have been taught something, anyhow, anywhere! No such hope dawned upon me. They disliked me; and they sullenly, sternly, steadily, overlooked me. I think Mr. Murdstone's means were straitened at about this time; but it is little to the purpose. He could not bear me; and in putting me from him he tried, as I believe, to put away the notion that I had any claim upon him--and succeeded. I was not actively ill-used. I was not beaten, or starved; but the wrong that was done to me had no intervals of relenting, and was done in a systematic, passionless manner. Day after day, week after week, month after month, I was coldly neglected. I wonder sometimes, when I think of it, what they would have done if I had been taken with an illness; whether I should have lain down in my lonely room, and languished through it in my usual solitary way, or whether anybody would have helped me out. When Mr. and Miss Murdstone were at home, I took my meals with them; in their absence, I ate and drank by myself. At all times I lounged about the house and neighbourhood quite disregarded, except that they were jealous of my making any friends: thinking, perhaps, that, if I did, I might complain to some one. For this reason, though Mr. Chillip often asked me to go and see him (he was a widower, having, some years before that, lost a little small light-haired wife, whom I can just remember connecting in my own thoughts with a pale tortoise-shell cat), it was but seldom that I enjoyed the happiness of passing an afternoon in his closet of a surgery; reading some book that was new to me, with the smell of the whole pharmacopoeia coming up my nose, or pounding something in a mortar under his mild directions. For the same reason, added no doubt to the old dislike of her, I was seldom allowed to visit Peggotty. Faithful to her promise, she either came to see me, or met me somewhere near, once every week, and never empty-handed; but many and bitter were the disappointments I had, in being refused permission to pay a visit to her at her house. Some few times, however, at long intervals, I was allowed to go there; and then I found out that Mr. Barkis was something of a miser, or as Peggotty dutifully expressed it, was "a little near," and kept a heap of money in a box under his bed, which he pretended was only full of coats and trousers. In this coffer, his riches hid themselves with such a tenacious modesty, that the smallest instalments could only be tempted out by artifice; so that Peggotty had to prepare a long and elaborate scheme, a very Gunpowder Plot, for every Saturday's expenses. All this time I was so conscious of the waste of any promise I had given, and of my being utterly neglected, that I should have been perfectly miserable, I have no doubt, but for the old books. They were my only comfort; and I was as true to them as they were to me, and read them over and over I don't know how many times more. I now approach a period of my life, which I can never lose the remembrance of, while I remember any thing; and the recollection of which has often, without my invocation, come before me like a ghost, and haunted happier times. I had been out, one day, loitering somewhere, in the listless, meditative manner that my way of life engendered, when, turning the corner of a lane near our house, I came upon Mr. Murdstone walking with a gentleman. I was confused, and was going by them, when the gentleman cried: "What! Brooks!" "No, sir, David Copperfield," I said. "Don't tell me. You are Brooks," said the gentleman. "You are Brooks of Sheffield. That's your name." At these words, I observed the gentleman more attentively. His laugh coming to my remembrance too, I knew him to be Mr. Quinion, whom I had gone over to Lowestoft with Mr. Murdstone to see, before--it is no matter--I need not recall when. "And how do you get on, and where are you being educated, Brooks?" said Mr. Quinion. He had put his hand upon my shoulder, and turned me about, to walk with them. I did not know what to reply, and glanced dubiously at Mr. Murdstone. "He is at home at present," said the latter. "He is not being educated anywhere. I don't know what to do with him. He is a difficult subject." That old, double look was on me for a moment; and then his eye darkened with a frown, as it turned, in its aversion, elsewhere. "Humph!" said Mr. Quinion, looking at us both, I thought. "Fine weather!" Silence ensued, and I was considering how I could best disengage my shoulder from his hand, and go away, when he said: "I suppose you are a pretty sharp fellow still? Eh, Brooks?" "Aye! He is sharp enough," said Mr. Murdstone, impatiently. "You had better let him go. He will not thank you for troubling him." On this hint, Mr. Quinion released me, and I made the best of my way home. Looking back as I turned into the front garden, I saw Mr. Murdstone leaning against the wicket of the churchyard, and Mr. Quinion talking to him. They were both looking after me, and I felt that they were speaking of me. Mr. Quinion lay at our house that night. After breakfast, the next morning, I had put my chair away, and was going out of the room, when Mr. Murdstone called me back. He then gravely repaired to another table, where his sister sat herself at her desk. Mr. Quinion, with his hands in his pockets, stood looking out of window; and I stood looking at them all. "David," said Mr. Murdstone, "to the young this is a world for action; not for moping and droning in." --"As you do," added his sister. "Jane Murdstone, leave it to me, if you please. I say, David, to the young this is a world for action, and not for moping and droning in. It is especially so for a young boy of your disposition, which requires a great deal of correcting; and to which no greater service can be done than to force it to conform to the ways of the working world, and to bend it and break it." "For stubbornness won't do here," said his sister. "What it wants, is, to be crushed. And crushed it must be. Shall be, too!" He gave her a look, half in remonstrance, half in approval, and went on: "I suppose you know, David, that I am not rich. At any rate, you know it now. You have received some considerable education already. Education is costly; and even if it were not, and I could afford it, I am of opinion that it would not be at all advantageous to you to be kept at a school. What is before you, is a fight with the world; and the sooner you begin it, the better." I think it occurred to me that I had already begun it, in my poor way: but it occurs to me now, whether or no. "You have heard 'the counting-house' mentioned sometimes," said Mr. Murdstone. "The counting-house, sir?" I repeated. "Of Murdstone and Grinby, in the wine trade," he replied. I suppose I looked uncertain, for he went on hastily: "You have heard the 'counting-house' mentioned, or the business, or the cellars, or the wharf, or something about it." "I think I have heard the business mentioned, sir," I said, remembering what I vaguely knew of his and his sister's resources. "But I don't know when." "It does not matter when," he returned. "Mr. Quinion manages that business." I glanced at the latter deferentially as he stood looking out of window. "Mr. Quinion suggests that it gives employment to some other boys, and that he sees no reason why it shouldn't, on the same terms, give employment to you." "He having," Mr. Quinion observed in a low voice, and half turning round, "no other prospect, Murdstone." Mr. Murdstone, with an impatient, even an angry gesture, resumed, without noticing what he had said: "Those terms are, that you will earn enough for yourself to provide for your eating and drinking, and pocket-money. Your lodging (which I have arranged for) will be paid by me. So will your washing--" "--Which will be kept down to my estimate," said his sister. "Your clothes will be looked after for you, too," said Mr. Murdstone; "as you will not be able, yet awhile, to get them for yourself. So you are now going to London, David, with Mr. Quinion, to begin the world on your own account." "In short, you are provided for," observed his sister; "and will please to do your duty." Though I quite understood that the purpose of this announcement was to get rid of me, I have no distinct remembrance whether it pleased or frightened me. My impression is, that I was in a state of confusion about it, and, oscillating between the two points, touched neither. Nor had I much time for the clearing of my thoughts, as Mr. Quinion was to go upon the morrow. Behold me, on the morrow, in a much-worn little white hat, with a black crape round it for my mother, a black jacket, and a pair of hard stiff corduroy trousers--which Miss Murdstone considered the best armour for the legs in that fight with the world which was now to come off: behold me so attired, and with my little worldly all before me in a small trunk, sitting, a lone lorn child (as Mrs. Gummidge might have said), in the postchaise that was carrying Mr. Quinion to the London coach at Yarmouth! See, how our house and church are lessening in the distance; how the grave beneath the tree is blotted out by intervening objects; how the spire points upward from my old playground no more, and the sky is empty! CHAPTER XI. I BEGIN LIFE ON MY OWN ACCOUNT, AND DON'T LIKE IT. I know enough of the world now, to have almost lost the capacity of being much surprised by anything; but it is matter of some surprise to me, even now, that I can have been so easily thrown away at such an age. A child of excellent abilities, and with strong powers of observation, quick, eager, delicate, and soon hurt bodily or mentally, it seems wonderful to me that nobody should have made any sign in my behalf. But none was made; and I became, at ten years old, a little labouring hind in the service of Murdstone and Grinby. Murdstone and Grinby's warehouse was at the water side. It was down in Blackfriars. Modern improvements have altered the place; but it was the last house at the bottom of a narrow street, curving down hill to the river, with some stairs at the end, where people took boat. It was a crazy old house with a wharf of its own, abutting on the water when the tide was in, and on the mud when the tide was out, and literally overrun with rats. Its panelled rooms, discolored with the dirt and smoke of a hundred years, I dare say; its decaying floors and staircase; the squeaking and scuffling of the old grey rats down in the cellars; and the dirt and rottenness of the place; are things, not of many years ago, in my mind, but of the present instant. They are all before me, just as they were in the evil hour when I went among them for the first time, with my trembling hand in Mr. Quinion's. Murdstone and Grinby's trade was among a good many kinds of people, but an important branch of it was the supply of wines and spirits to certain packet ships. I forget now where they chiefly went, but I think there were some among them that made voyages both to the East and West Indies. I know that a great many empty bottles were one of the consequences of this traffic, and that certain men and boys were employed to examine them against the light, and reject those that were flawed, and to rinse and wash them. When the empty bottles ran short, there were labels to be pasted on full ones, or corks to be fitted to them, or seals to be put upon the corks, or finished bottles to be packed in casks. All this work was my work, and of the boys employed upon it I was one. There were three or four of us, counting me. My working place was established in a corner of the warehouse, where Mr. Quinion could see me, when he chose to stand up on the bottom rail of his stool in the counting-house, and look at me through a window above the desk. Hither, on the first morning of my so auspiciously beginning life on my own account, the oldest of the regular boys was summoned to show me my business. His name was Mick Walker, and he wore a ragged apron and a paper cap. He informed me that his father was a bargeman, and walked, in a black velvet head-dress, in the Lord Mayor's Show. He also informed me that our principal associate would be another boy whom he introduced by the--to me--extraordinary name of Mealy Potatoes. I discovered, however, that this youth had not been christened by that name, but that it had been bestowed upon him in the warehouse, on account of his complexion, which was pale or mealy. Mealy's father was a waterman, who had the additional distinction of being a fireman, and was engaged as such at one of the large theatres; where some young relation of Mealy's--I think his little sister--did Imps in the Pantomimes. No words can express the secret agony of my soul as I sunk into this companionship; compared these henceforth every-day associates with those of my happier childhood--not to say with Steerforth, Traddles, and the rest of those boys; and felt my hopes of growing up to be a learned and distinguished man, crushed in my bosom. The deep remembrance of the sense I had, of being utterly without hope now; of the shame I felt in my position; of the misery it was to my young heart to believe that day by day what I had learned, and thought, and delighted in, and raised my fancy and my emulation up by, would pass away from me, little by little, never to be brought back any more; cannot be written. As often as Mick Walker went away in the course of that forenoon, I mingled my tears with the water in which I was washing the bottles; and sobbed as if there were a flaw in my own breast, and it were in danger of bursting. The counting-house clock was at half-past twelve, and there was general preparation for going to dinner, when Mr. Quinion tapped at the counting-house window, and beckoned to me to go in. I went in, and found there a stoutish, middle-aged person, in a brown surtout and black tights and shoes, with no more hair upon his head (which was a large one, and very shining) than there is upon an egg, and with a very extensive face, which he turned full upon me. His clothes were shabby, but he had an imposing shirt-collar on. He carried a jaunty sort of a stick, with a large pair of rusty tassels to it; and a quizzing-glass hung outside his coat,--for ornament, I afterwards found, as he very seldom looked through it, and couldn't see anything when he did. "This," said Mr. Quinion, in allusion to myself, "is he." "This," said the stranger, with a certain condescending roll in his voice, and a certain indescribable air of doing something genteel, which impressed me very much, "is Master Copperfield. I hope I see you well, sir?" I said I was very well, and hoped he was. I was sufficiently ill at ease, Heaven knows; but it was not in my nature to complain much at that time of my life, so I said I was very well, and hoped he was. "I am," said the stranger, "thank Heaven, quite well. I have received a letter from Mr. Murdstone, in which he mentions that he would desire me to receive into an apartment in the rear of my house, which is at present unoccupied--and is, in short, to be let as a--in short," said the stranger, with a smile and in a burst of confidence, "as a bed-room--the young beginner whom I have now the pleasure to--" and the stranger waved his hand, and settled his chin in his shirt collar. "This is Mr. Micawber," said Mr. Quinion to me. "Ahem!" said the stranger, "that is my name." "Mr. Micawber," said Mr. Quinion, "is known to Mr. Murdstone. He takes orders for us on commission, when he can get any. He has been written to by Mr. Murdstone, on the subject of your lodgings, and he will receive you as a lodger." "My address," said Mr. Micawber, "is Windsor Terrace, City Road. I--in short," said Mr. Micawber, with the same genteel air, and in another burst of confidence--"I live there." I made him a bow. "Under the impression," said Mr. Micawber, "that your peregrinations in this metropolis have not as yet been extensive, and that you might have some difficulty in penetrating the arcana of the Modern Babylon in the direction of the City Road--in short," said Mr. Micawber, in another burst of confidence, "that you might lose yourself--I shall be happy to call this evening, and install you in the knowledge of the nearest way." I thanked him with all my heart, for it was friendly in him to offer to take that trouble. "At what hour," said Mr. Micawber, "shall I--" "At about eight," said Mr. Quinion. "At about eight," said Mr. Micawber. "I beg to wish you good day, Mr. Quinion. I will intrude no longer." So he put on his hat, and went out with his cane under his arm: very upright, and humming a tune when he was clear of the counting-house. Mr. Quinion then formally engaged me to be as useful as I could in the warehouse of Murdstone and Grinby, at a salary, I think, of six shillings a week. I am not clear whether it was six or seven. I am inclined to believe, from my uncertainty on this head, that it was six at first and seven afterwards. He paid me a week down (from his own pocket, I believe), and I gave Mealy sixpence out of it to get my trunk carried to Windsor Terrace at night: it being too heavy for my strength, small as it was. I paid sixpence more for my dinner, which was a meat pie and a turn at a neighbouring pump; and passed the hour which was allowed for that meal, in walking about the streets. At the appointed time in the evening, Mr. Micawber reappeared. I washed my hands and face, to do the greater honour to his gentility, and we walked to our house, as I suppose I must now call it, together; Mr. Micawber impressing the names of streets, and the shapes of corner houses upon me, as we went along, that I might find my way back, easily, in the morning. Arrived at his house in Windsor Terrace (which I noticed was shabby like himself, but also, like himself, made all the show it could), he presented me to Mrs. Micawber, a thin and faded lady, not at all young, who was sitting in

putting

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

with them; you had better do it yourself." But here Peggotty, who had been going about from one to another in a hurried way, kissing everybody, called out from the cart, in which we all were by this time (Em'ly and I on two little chairs, side by side), that Mrs. Gummidge must do it. So Mrs. Gummidge did it; and, I am sorry to relate, cast a damp upon the festive character of our departure, by immediately bursting into tears, and sinking subdued into the arms of Ham, with the declaration that she knowed she was a burden, and had better be carried to the House at once. Which I really thought was a sensible idea, that Ham might have acted on. [Illustration: Mrs. Gummidge casts a damp on our departure.] Away we went, however, on our holiday excursion; and the first thing we did was to stop at a church, where Mr. Barkis tied the horse to some rails, and went in with Peggotty, leaving little Em'ly and me alone in the chaise. I took that occasion to put my arm round Em'ly's waist, and propose that as I was going away so very soon now, we should determine to be very affectionate to one another, and very happy, all day. Little Em'ly consenting, and allowing me to kiss her, I became desperate; informing her, I recollect, that I never could love another, and that I was prepared to shed the blood of anybody who should aspire to her affections. How merry little Em'ly made herself about it! With what a demure assumption of being immensely older and wiser than I, the fairy little woman said I was "a silly boy;" and then laughed so charmingly that I forgot the pain of being called by that disparaging name, in the pleasure of looking at her. Mr. Barkis and Peggotty were a good while in the church, but came out at last, and then we drove away into the country. As we were going along, Mr. Barkis turned to me, and said, with a wink,--by-the-by, I should hardly have thought, before, that he _could_ wink: "What name was it as I wrote up in the cart?" "Clara Peggotty," I answered. "What name would it be as I should write up now, if there was a tilt here?" "Clara Peggotty, again?" I suggested. "Clara Peggotty BARKIS!" he returned, and burst into a roar of laughter that shook the chaise. In a word, they were married, and had gone into the church for no other purpose. Peggotty was resolved that it should be quietly done; and the clerk had given her away, and there had been no witnesses of the ceremony. She was a little confused when Mr. Barkis made this abrupt announcement of their union, and could not hug me enough in token of her unimpaired affection; but she soon became herself again, and said she was very glad it was over. We drove to a little inn in a bye road, where we were expected, and where we had a very comfortable dinner, and passed the day with great satisfaction. If Peggotty had been married every day for the last ten years, she could hardly have been more at her ease about it; it made no sort of difference in her: she was just the same as ever, and went out for a stroll with little Em'ly and me before tea, while Mr. Barkis philosophically smoked his pipe, and enjoyed himself, I suppose, with the contemplation of his happiness. If so, it sharpened his appetite; for I distinctly call to mind that, although he had eaten a good deal of pork and greens at dinner, and had finished off with a fowl or two, he was obliged to have cold boiled bacon for tea, and disposed of a large quantity without any emotion. I have often thought, since, what an odd, innocent, out-of-the-way kind of wedding it must have been! We got into the chaise again soon after dark, and drove cosily back, looking up at the stars, and talking about them. I was their chief exponent, and opened Mr. Barkis's mind to an amazing extent. I told him all I knew, but he would have believed anything I might have taken it into my head to impart to him; for he had a profound veneration for my abilities, and informed his wife in my hearing, on that very occasion, that I was "a young Roeshus"--by which I think he meant, prodigy. When we had exhausted the subject of the stars, or rather when I had exhausted the mental faculties of Mr. Barkis, little Em'ly and I made a cloak of an old wrapper, and sat under it for the rest of the journey. Ah, how I loved her! What happiness (I thought) if we were married, and were going away anywhere to live among the trees and in the fields, never growing older, never growing wiser, children ever, rambling hand in hand through sunshine and among flowery meadows, laying down our heads on moss at night, in a sweet sleep of purity and peace, and buried by the birds when we were dead! Some such picture, with no real world in it, bright with the light of our innocence, and vague as the stars afar off, was in my mind all the way. I am glad to think there were two such guileless hearts at Peggotty's marriage as little Em'ly's and mine. I am glad to think the Loves and Graces took such airy forms in its homely procession. Well, we came to the old boat again in good time at night; and there Mr. and Mrs. Barkis bade us good-bye, and drove away snugly to their own home. I felt then, for the first time, that I had lost Peggotty. I should have gone to bed with a sore heart indeed under any other roof but that which sheltered little Em'ly's head. Mr. Peggotty and Ham knew what was in my thoughts as well as I did, and were ready with some supper and their hospitable faces to drive it away. Little Em'ly came and sat beside me on the locker, for the only time in all that visit; and it was altogether a wonderful close to a wonderful day. It was a night tide; and soon after we went to bed, Mr. Peggotty and Ham went out to fish. I felt very brave at being left alone in the solitary house, the protector of Em'ly and Mrs. Gummidge, and only wished that a lion or a serpent, or any ill-disposed monster, would make an attack upon us, that I might destroy him, and cover myself with glory. But as nothing of the sort happened to be walking about on Yarmouth flats that night, I provided the best substitute I could by dreaming of dragons until morning. With morning came Peggotty; who called to me, as usual, under my window as if Mr. Barkis the carrier had been from first to last a dream too. After breakfast she took me to her own home, and a beautiful little home it was. Of all the moveables in it, I must have been most impressed by a certain old bureau of some dark wood in the parlor (the tile-floored kitchen was the general sitting-room), with a retreating top which opened, let down, and became a desk, within which, was a large quarto edition of Fox's Book of Martyrs. This precious volume, of which I do not recollect one word, I immediately discovered and immediately applied myself to; and I never visited the house afterwards, but I kneeled on a chair, opened the casket where this gem was enshrined, spread my arms over the desk, and fell to devouring the book afresh. I was chiefly edified, I am afraid, by the pictures, which were numerous, and represented all kinds of dismal horrors; but the Martyrs and Peggotty's house have been inseparable in my mind ever since, and are now. I took leave of Mr. Peggotty, and Ham, and Mrs. Gummidge, and little Em'ly, that day; and passed the night at Peggotty's, in a little room in the roof (with the crocodile-book on a shelf by the bed's head) which was to be always mine, Peggotty said, and should always be kept for me in exactly the same state. "Young or old, Davy dear, as long as I am alive and have this house over my head," said Peggotty, "you shall find it as if I expected you here directly minute. I shall keep it every day, as I used to keep your old little room, my darling; and if you was to go to China, you might think of it as being kept just the same, all the time you were away." I felt the truth and constancy of my dear old nurse, with all my heart, and thanked her as well as I could. That was not very well, for she spoke to me thus, with her arms round my neck, in the morning, and I was going home in the morning, and I went home in the morning, with herself and Mr. Barkis in the cart. They left me at the gate, not easily or lightly; and it was a strange sight to me to see the cart go on, taking Peggotty away, and leaving me under the old elm-trees looking at the house, in which there was no face to look on mine with love or liking any more. And now I fell into a state of neglect, which I cannot look back upon without compassion. I fell at once into a solitary condition,--apart from all friendly notice, apart from the society of all other boys of my own age, apart from all companionship but my own spiritless thoughts,--which seems to cast its gloom upon this paper as I write. What would I have given, to have been sent to the hardest school that ever was kept!--to have been taught something, anyhow, anywhere! No such hope dawned upon me. They disliked me; and they sullenly, sternly, steadily, overlooked me. I think Mr. Murdstone's means were straitened at about this time; but it is little to the purpose. He could not bear me; and in putting me from him he tried, as I believe, to put away the notion that I had any claim upon him--and succeeded. I was not actively ill-used. I was not beaten, or starved; but the wrong that was done to me had no intervals of relenting, and was done in a systematic, passionless manner. Day after day, week after week, month after month, I was coldly neglected. I wonder sometimes, when I think of it, what they would have done if I had been taken with an illness; whether I should have lain down in my lonely room, and languished through it in my usual solitary way, or whether anybody would have helped me out. When Mr. and Miss Murdstone were at home, I took my meals with them; in their absence, I ate and drank by myself. At all times I lounged about the house and neighbourhood quite disregarded, except that they were jealous of my making any friends: thinking, perhaps, that, if I did, I might complain to some one. For this reason, though Mr. Chillip often asked me to go and see him (he was a widower, having, some years before that, lost a little small light-haired wife, whom I can just remember connecting in my own thoughts with a pale tortoise-shell cat), it was but seldom that I enjoyed the happiness of passing an afternoon in his closet of a surgery; reading some book that was new to me, with the smell of the whole pharmacopoeia coming up my nose, or pounding something in a mortar under his mild directions. For the same reason, added no doubt to the old dislike of her, I was seldom allowed to visit Peggotty. Faithful to her promise, she either came to see me, or met me somewhere near, once every week, and never empty-handed; but many and bitter were the disappointments I had, in being refused permission to pay a visit to her at her house. Some few times, however, at long intervals, I was allowed to go there; and then I found out that Mr. Barkis was something of a miser, or as Peggotty dutifully expressed it, was "a little near," and kept a heap of money in a box under his bed, which he pretended was only full of coats and trousers. In this coffer, his riches hid themselves with such a tenacious modesty, that the smallest instalments could only be tempted out by artifice; so that Peggotty had to prepare a long and elaborate scheme, a very Gunpowder Plot, for every Saturday's expenses. All this time I was so conscious of the waste of any promise I had given, and of my being utterly neglected, that I should have been perfectly miserable, I have no doubt, but for the old books. They were my only comfort; and I was as true to them as they were to me, and read them over and over I don't know how many times more. I now approach a period of my life, which I can never lose the remembrance of, while I remember any thing; and the recollection of which has often, without my invocation, come before me like a ghost, and haunted happier times. I had been out, one day, loitering somewhere, in the listless, meditative manner that my way of life engendered, when, turning the corner of a lane near our house, I came upon Mr. Murdstone walking with a gentleman. I was confused, and was going by them, when the gentleman cried: "What! Brooks!" "No, sir, David Copperfield," I said. "Don't tell me. You are Brooks," said the gentleman. "You are Brooks of Sheffield. That's your name." At these words, I observed the gentleman more attentively. His laugh coming to my remembrance too, I knew him to be Mr. Quinion, whom I had gone over to Lowestoft with Mr. Murdstone to see, before--it is no matter--I need not recall when. "And how do you get on, and where are you being educated, Brooks?" said Mr. Quinion. He had put his hand upon my shoulder, and turned me about, to walk with them. I did not know what to reply, and glanced dubiously at Mr. Murdstone. "He is at home at present," said the latter. "He is not being educated anywhere. I don't know what to do with him. He is a difficult subject." That old, double look was on me for a moment; and then his eye darkened with a frown, as it turned, in its aversion, elsewhere. "Humph!" said Mr. Quinion, looking at us both, I thought. "Fine weather!" Silence ensued, and I was considering how I could best disengage my shoulder from his hand, and go away, when he said: "I suppose you are a pretty sharp fellow still? Eh, Brooks?" "Aye! He is sharp enough," said Mr. Murdstone, impatiently. "You had better let him go. He will not thank you for troubling him." On this hint, Mr. Quinion released me, and I made the best of my way home. Looking back as I turned into the front garden, I saw Mr. Murdstone leaning against the wicket of the churchyard, and Mr. Quinion talking to him. They were both looking after me, and I felt that they were speaking of me. Mr. Quinion lay at our house that night. After breakfast, the next morning, I had put my chair away, and was going out of the room, when Mr. Murdstone called me back. He then gravely repaired to another table, where his sister sat herself at her desk. Mr. Quinion, with his hands in his pockets, stood looking out of window; and I stood looking at them all. "David," said Mr. Murdstone, "to the young this is a world for action; not for moping and droning in." --"As you do," added his sister. "Jane Murdstone, leave it to me, if you please. I say, David, to the young this is a world for action, and not for moping and droning in. It is especially so for a young boy of your disposition, which requires a great deal of correcting; and to which no greater service can be done than to force it to conform to the ways of the working world, and to bend it and break it." "For stubbornness won't do here," said his sister. "What it wants, is, to be crushed. And crushed it must be. Shall be, too!" He gave her a look, half in remonstrance, half in approval, and went on: "I suppose you know, David, that I am not rich. At any rate, you know it now. You have received some considerable education already. Education is costly; and even if it were not, and I could afford it, I am of opinion that it would not be at all advantageous to you to be kept at a school. What is before you, is a fight with the world; and the sooner you begin it, the better." I think it occurred to me that I had already begun it, in my poor way: but it occurs to me now, whether or no. "You have heard 'the counting-house' mentioned sometimes," said Mr. Murdstone. "The counting-house, sir?" I repeated. "Of Murdstone and Grinby, in the wine trade," he replied. I suppose I looked uncertain, for he went on hastily: "You have heard the 'counting-house' mentioned, or the business, or the cellars, or the wharf, or something about it." "I think I have heard the business mentioned, sir," I said, remembering what I vaguely knew of his and his sister's resources. "But I don't know when." "It does not matter when," he returned. "Mr. Quinion manages that business." I glanced at the latter deferentially as he stood looking out of window. "Mr. Quinion suggests that it gives employment to some other boys, and that he sees no reason why it shouldn't, on the same terms, give employment to you." "He having," Mr. Quinion observed in a low voice, and half turning round, "no other prospect, Murdstone." Mr. Murdstone, with an impatient, even an angry gesture, resumed, without noticing what he had said: "Those terms are, that you will earn enough for yourself to provide for your eating and drinking, and pocket-money. Your lodging (which I have arranged for) will be paid by me. So will your washing--" "--Which will be kept down to my estimate," said his sister. "Your clothes will be looked after for you, too," said Mr. Murdstone; "as you will not be able, yet awhile, to get them for yourself. So you are now going to London, David, with Mr. Quinion, to begin the world on your own account." "In short, you are provided for," observed his sister; "and will please to do your duty." Though I quite understood that the purpose of this announcement was to get rid of me, I have no distinct remembrance whether it pleased or frightened me. My impression is, that I was in a state of confusion about it, and, oscillating between the two points, touched neither. Nor had I much time for the clearing of my thoughts, as Mr. Quinion was to go upon the morrow. Behold me, on the morrow, in a much-worn little white hat, with a black crape round it for my mother, a black jacket, and a pair of hard stiff corduroy trousers--which Miss Murdstone considered the best armour for the legs in that fight with the world which was now to come off: behold me so attired, and with my little worldly all before me in a small trunk, sitting, a lone lorn child (as Mrs. Gummidge might have said), in the postchaise that was carrying Mr. Quinion to the London coach at Yarmouth! See, how our house and church are lessening in the distance; how the grave beneath the tree is blotted out by intervening objects; how the spire points upward from my old playground no more, and the sky is empty! CHAPTER XI. I BEGIN LIFE ON MY OWN ACCOUNT, AND DON'T LIKE IT. I know enough of the world now, to have almost lost the capacity of being much surprised by anything; but it is matter of some surprise to me, even now, that I can have been so easily thrown away at such an age. A child of excellent abilities, and with strong powers of observation, quick, eager, delicate, and soon hurt bodily or mentally, it seems wonderful to me that nobody should have made any sign in my behalf. But none was made; and I became, at ten years old, a little labouring hind in the service of Murdstone and Grinby. Murdstone and Grinby's warehouse was at the water side. It was down in Blackfriars. Modern improvements have altered the place; but it was the last house at the bottom of a narrow street, curving down hill to the river, with some stairs at the end, where people took boat. It was a crazy old house with a wharf of its own, abutting on the water when the tide was in, and on the mud when the tide was out, and literally overrun with rats. Its panelled rooms, discolored with the dirt and smoke of a hundred years, I dare say; its decaying floors and staircase; the squeaking and scuffling of the old grey rats down in the cellars; and the dirt and rottenness of the place; are things, not of many years ago, in my mind, but of the present instant. They are all before me, just as they were in the evil hour when I went among them for the first time, with my trembling hand in Mr. Quinion's. Murdstone and Grinby's trade was among a good many kinds of people, but an important branch of it was the supply of wines and spirits to certain packet ships. I forget now where they chiefly went, but I think there were some among them that made voyages both to the East and West Indies. I know that a great many empty bottles were one of the consequences of this traffic, and that certain men and boys were employed to examine them against the light, and reject those that were flawed, and to rinse and wash them. When the empty bottles ran short, there were labels to be pasted on full ones, or corks to be fitted to them, or seals to be put upon the corks, or finished bottles to be packed in casks. All this work was my work, and of the boys employed upon it I was one. There were three or four of us, counting me. My working place was established in a corner of the warehouse, where Mr. Quinion could see me, when he chose to stand up on the bottom rail of his stool in the counting-house, and look at me through a window above the desk. Hither, on the first morning of my so auspiciously beginning life on my own account, the oldest of the regular boys was summoned to show me my business. His name was Mick Walker, and he wore a ragged apron and a paper cap. He informed me that his father was a bargeman, and walked, in a black velvet head-dress, in the Lord Mayor's Show. He also informed me that our principal associate would be another boy whom he introduced by the--to me--extraordinary name of Mealy Potatoes. I discovered, however, that this youth had not been christened by that name, but that it had been bestowed upon him in the warehouse, on account of his complexion, which was pale or mealy. Mealy's father was a waterman, who had the additional distinction of being a fireman, and was engaged as such at one of the large theatres; where some young relation of Mealy's--I think his little sister--did Imps in the Pantomimes. No words can express the secret agony of my soul as I sunk into this companionship; compared these henceforth every-day associates with those of my happier childhood--not to say with Steerforth, Traddles, and the rest of those boys; and felt my hopes of growing up to be a learned and distinguished man, crushed in my bosom. The deep remembrance of the sense I had, of being utterly without hope now; of the shame I felt in my position; of the misery it was to my young heart to believe that day by day what I had learned, and thought, and delighted in, and raised my fancy and my emulation up by, would pass away from me, little by little, never to be brought back any more; cannot be written. As often as Mick Walker went away in the course of that forenoon, I mingled my tears with the water in which I was washing the bottles; and sobbed as if there were a flaw in my own breast, and it were in danger of bursting. The counting-house clock was at half-past twelve, and there was general preparation for going to dinner, when Mr. Quinion tapped at the counting-house window, and beckoned to me to go in. I went in, and found there a stoutish, middle-aged person, in a brown surtout and black tights and shoes, with no more hair upon his head (which was a large one, and very shining) than there is upon an egg, and with a very extensive face, which he turned full upon me. His clothes were shabby, but he had an imposing shirt-collar on. He carried a jaunty sort of a stick, with a large pair of rusty tassels to it; and a quizzing-glass hung outside his coat,--for ornament, I afterwards found, as he very seldom looked through it, and couldn't see anything when he did. "This," said Mr. Quinion, in allusion to myself, "is he." "This," said the stranger, with a certain condescending roll in his voice, and a certain indescribable air of doing something genteel, which impressed me very much, "is Master Copperfield. I hope I see you well, sir?" I said I was very well, and hoped he was. I was sufficiently ill at ease, Heaven knows; but it was not in my nature to complain much at that time of my life, so I said I was very well, and hoped he was. "I am," said the stranger, "thank Heaven, quite well. I have received a letter from Mr. Murdstone, in which he mentions that he would desire me to receive into an apartment in the rear of my house, which is at present unoccupied--and is, in short, to be let as a--in short," said the stranger, with a smile and in a burst of confidence, "as a bed-room--the young beginner whom I have now the pleasure to--" and the stranger waved his hand, and settled his chin in his shirt collar. "This is Mr. Micawber," said Mr. Quinion to me. "Ahem!" said the stranger, "that is my name." "Mr. Micawber," said Mr. Quinion, "is known to Mr. Murdstone. He takes orders for us on commission, when he can get any. He has been written to by Mr. Murdstone, on the subject of your lodgings, and he will receive you as a lodger." "My address," said Mr. Micawber, "is Windsor Terrace, City Road. I--in short," said Mr. Micawber, with the same genteel air, and in another burst of confidence--"I live there." I made him a bow. "Under the impression," said Mr. Micawber, "that your peregrinations in this metropolis have not as yet been extensive, and that you might have some difficulty in penetrating the arcana of the Modern Babylon in the direction of the City Road--in short," said Mr. Micawber, in another burst of confidence, "that you might lose yourself--I shall be happy to call this evening, and install you in the knowledge of the nearest way." I thanked him with all my heart, for it was friendly in him to offer to take that trouble. "At what hour," said Mr. Micawber, "shall I--" "At about eight," said Mr. Quinion. "At about eight," said Mr. Micawber. "I beg to wish you good day, Mr. Quinion. I will intrude no longer." So he put on his hat, and went out with his cane under his arm: very upright, and humming a tune when he was clear of the counting-house. Mr. Quinion then formally engaged me to be as useful as I could in the warehouse of Murdstone and Grinby, at a salary, I think, of six shillings a week. I am not clear whether it was six or seven. I am inclined to believe, from my uncertainty on this head, that it was six at first and seven afterwards. He paid me a week down (from his own pocket, I believe), and I gave Mealy sixpence out of it to get my trunk carried to Windsor Terrace at night: it being too heavy for my strength, small as it was. I paid sixpence more for my dinner, which was a meat pie and a turn at a neighbouring pump; and passed the hour which was allowed for that meal, in walking about the streets. At the appointed time in the evening, Mr. Micawber reappeared. I washed my hands and face, to do the greater honour to his gentility, and we walked to our house, as I suppose I must now call it, together; Mr. Micawber impressing the names of streets, and the shapes of corner houses upon me, as we went along, that I might find my way back, easily, in the morning. Arrived at his house in Windsor Terrace (which I noticed was shabby like himself, but also, like himself, made all the show it could), he presented me to Mrs. Micawber, a thin and faded lady, not at all young, who was sitting in

ate

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

with them; you had better do it yourself." But here Peggotty, who had been going about from one to another in a hurried way, kissing everybody, called out from the cart, in which we all were by this time (Em'ly and I on two little chairs, side by side), that Mrs. Gummidge must do it. So Mrs. Gummidge did it; and, I am sorry to relate, cast a damp upon the festive character of our departure, by immediately bursting into tears, and sinking subdued into the arms of Ham, with the declaration that she knowed she was a burden, and had better be carried to the House at once. Which I really thought was a sensible idea, that Ham might have acted on. [Illustration: Mrs. Gummidge casts a damp on our departure.] Away we went, however, on our holiday excursion; and the first thing we did was to stop at a church, where Mr. Barkis tied the horse to some rails, and went in with Peggotty, leaving little Em'ly and me alone in the chaise. I took that occasion to put my arm round Em'ly's waist, and propose that as I was going away so very soon now, we should determine to be very affectionate to one another, and very happy, all day. Little Em'ly consenting, and allowing me to kiss her, I became desperate; informing her, I recollect, that I never could love another, and that I was prepared to shed the blood of anybody who should aspire to her affections. How merry little Em'ly made herself about it! With what a demure assumption of being immensely older and wiser than I, the fairy little woman said I was "a silly boy;" and then laughed so charmingly that I forgot the pain of being called by that disparaging name, in the pleasure of looking at her. Mr. Barkis and Peggotty were a good while in the church, but came out at last, and then we drove away into the country. As we were going along, Mr. Barkis turned to me, and said, with a wink,--by-the-by, I should hardly have thought, before, that he _could_ wink: "What name was it as I wrote up in the cart?" "Clara Peggotty," I answered. "What name would it be as I should write up now, if there was a tilt here?" "Clara Peggotty, again?" I suggested. "Clara Peggotty BARKIS!" he returned, and burst into a roar of laughter that shook the chaise. In a word, they were married, and had gone into the church for no other purpose. Peggotty was resolved that it should be quietly done; and the clerk had given her away, and there had been no witnesses of the ceremony. She was a little confused when Mr. Barkis made this abrupt announcement of their union, and could not hug me enough in token of her unimpaired affection; but she soon became herself again, and said she was very glad it was over. We drove to a little inn in a bye road, where we were expected, and where we had a very comfortable dinner, and passed the day with great satisfaction. If Peggotty had been married every day for the last ten years, she could hardly have been more at her ease about it; it made no sort of difference in her: she was just the same as ever, and went out for a stroll with little Em'ly and me before tea, while Mr. Barkis philosophically smoked his pipe, and enjoyed himself, I suppose, with the contemplation of his happiness. If so, it sharpened his appetite; for I distinctly call to mind that, although he had eaten a good deal of pork and greens at dinner, and had finished off with a fowl or two, he was obliged to have cold boiled bacon for tea, and disposed of a large quantity without any emotion. I have often thought, since, what an odd, innocent, out-of-the-way kind of wedding it must have been! We got into the chaise again soon after dark, and drove cosily back, looking up at the stars, and talking about them. I was their chief exponent, and opened Mr. Barkis's mind to an amazing extent. I told him all I knew, but he would have believed anything I might have taken it into my head to impart to him; for he had a profound veneration for my abilities, and informed his wife in my hearing, on that very occasion, that I was "a young Roeshus"--by which I think he meant, prodigy. When we had exhausted the subject of the stars, or rather when I had exhausted the mental faculties of Mr. Barkis, little Em'ly and I made a cloak of an old wrapper, and sat under it for the rest of the journey. Ah, how I loved her! What happiness (I thought) if we were married, and were going away anywhere to live among the trees and in the fields, never growing older, never growing wiser, children ever, rambling hand in hand through sunshine and among flowery meadows, laying down our heads on moss at night, in a sweet sleep of purity and peace, and buried by the birds when we were dead! Some such picture, with no real world in it, bright with the light of our innocence, and vague as the stars afar off, was in my mind all the way. I am glad to think there were two such guileless hearts at Peggotty's marriage as little Em'ly's and mine. I am glad to think the Loves and Graces took such airy forms in its homely procession. Well, we came to the old boat again in good time at night; and there Mr. and Mrs. Barkis bade us good-bye, and drove away snugly to their own home. I felt then, for the first time, that I had lost Peggotty. I should have gone to bed with a sore heart indeed under any other roof but that which sheltered little Em'ly's head. Mr. Peggotty and Ham knew what was in my thoughts as well as I did, and were ready with some supper and their hospitable faces to drive it away. Little Em'ly came and sat beside me on the locker, for the only time in all that visit; and it was altogether a wonderful close to a wonderful day. It was a night tide; and soon after we went to bed, Mr. Peggotty and Ham went out to fish. I felt very brave at being left alone in the solitary house, the protector of Em'ly and Mrs. Gummidge, and only wished that a lion or a serpent, or any ill-disposed monster, would make an attack upon us, that I might destroy him, and cover myself with glory. But as nothing of the sort happened to be walking about on Yarmouth flats that night, I provided the best substitute I could by dreaming of dragons until morning. With morning came Peggotty; who called to me, as usual, under my window as if Mr. Barkis the carrier had been from first to last a dream too. After breakfast she took me to her own home, and a beautiful little home it was. Of all the moveables in it, I must have been most impressed by a certain old bureau of some dark wood in the parlor (the tile-floored kitchen was the general sitting-room), with a retreating top which opened, let down, and became a desk, within which, was a large quarto edition of Fox's Book of Martyrs. This precious volume, of which I do not recollect one word, I immediately discovered and immediately applied myself to; and I never visited the house afterwards, but I kneeled on a chair, opened the casket where this gem was enshrined, spread my arms over the desk, and fell to devouring the book afresh. I was chiefly edified, I am afraid, by the pictures, which were numerous, and represented all kinds of dismal horrors; but the Martyrs and Peggotty's house have been inseparable in my mind ever since, and are now. I took leave of Mr. Peggotty, and Ham, and Mrs. Gummidge, and little Em'ly, that day; and passed the night at Peggotty's, in a little room in the roof (with the crocodile-book on a shelf by the bed's head) which was to be always mine, Peggotty said, and should always be kept for me in exactly the same state. "Young or old, Davy dear, as long as I am alive and have this house over my head," said Peggotty, "you shall find it as if I expected you here directly minute. I shall keep it every day, as I used to keep your old little room, my darling; and if you was to go to China, you might think of it as being kept just the same, all the time you were away." I felt the truth and constancy of my dear old nurse, with all my heart, and thanked her as well as I could. That was not very well, for she spoke to me thus, with her arms round my neck, in the morning, and I was going home in the morning, and I went home in the morning, with herself and Mr. Barkis in the cart. They left me at the gate, not easily or lightly; and it was a strange sight to me to see the cart go on, taking Peggotty away, and leaving me under the old elm-trees looking at the house, in which there was no face to look on mine with love or liking any more. And now I fell into a state of neglect, which I cannot look back upon without compassion. I fell at once into a solitary condition,--apart from all friendly notice, apart from the society of all other boys of my own age, apart from all companionship but my own spiritless thoughts,--which seems to cast its gloom upon this paper as I write. What would I have given, to have been sent to the hardest school that ever was kept!--to have been taught something, anyhow, anywhere! No such hope dawned upon me. They disliked me; and they sullenly, sternly, steadily, overlooked me. I think Mr. Murdstone's means were straitened at about this time; but it is little to the purpose. He could not bear me; and in putting me from him he tried, as I believe, to put away the notion that I had any claim upon him--and succeeded. I was not actively ill-used. I was not beaten, or starved; but the wrong that was done to me had no intervals of relenting, and was done in a systematic, passionless manner. Day after day, week after week, month after month, I was coldly neglected. I wonder sometimes, when I think of it, what they would have done if I had been taken with an illness; whether I should have lain down in my lonely room, and languished through it in my usual solitary way, or whether anybody would have helped me out. When Mr. and Miss Murdstone were at home, I took my meals with them; in their absence, I ate and drank by myself. At all times I lounged about the house and neighbourhood quite disregarded, except that they were jealous of my making any friends: thinking, perhaps, that, if I did, I might complain to some one. For this reason, though Mr. Chillip often asked me to go and see him (he was a widower, having, some years before that, lost a little small light-haired wife, whom I can just remember connecting in my own thoughts with a pale tortoise-shell cat), it was but seldom that I enjoyed the happiness of passing an afternoon in his closet of a surgery; reading some book that was new to me, with the smell of the whole pharmacopoeia coming up my nose, or pounding something in a mortar under his mild directions. For the same reason, added no doubt to the old dislike of her, I was seldom allowed to visit Peggotty. Faithful to her promise, she either came to see me, or met me somewhere near, once every week, and never empty-handed; but many and bitter were the disappointments I had, in being refused permission to pay a visit to her at her house. Some few times, however, at long intervals, I was allowed to go there; and then I found out that Mr. Barkis was something of a miser, or as Peggotty dutifully expressed it, was "a little near," and kept a heap of money in a box under his bed, which he pretended was only full of coats and trousers. In this coffer, his riches hid themselves with such a tenacious modesty, that the smallest instalments could only be tempted out by artifice; so that Peggotty had to prepare a long and elaborate scheme, a very Gunpowder Plot, for every Saturday's expenses. All this time I was so conscious of the waste of any promise I had given, and of my being utterly neglected, that I should have been perfectly miserable, I have no doubt, but for the old books. They were my only comfort; and I was as true to them as they were to me, and read them over and over I don't know how many times more. I now approach a period of my life, which I can never lose the remembrance of, while I remember any thing; and the recollection of which has often, without my invocation, come before me like a ghost, and haunted happier times. I had been out, one day, loitering somewhere, in the listless, meditative manner that my way of life engendered, when, turning the corner of a lane near our house, I came upon Mr. Murdstone walking with a gentleman. I was confused, and was going by them, when the gentleman cried: "What! Brooks!" "No, sir, David Copperfield," I said. "Don't tell me. You are Brooks," said the gentleman. "You are Brooks of Sheffield. That's your name." At these words, I observed the gentleman more attentively. His laugh coming to my remembrance too, I knew him to be Mr. Quinion, whom I had gone over to Lowestoft with Mr. Murdstone to see, before--it is no matter--I need not recall when. "And how do you get on, and where are you being educated, Brooks?" said Mr. Quinion. He had put his hand upon my shoulder, and turned me about, to walk with them. I did not know what to reply, and glanced dubiously at Mr. Murdstone. "He is at home at present," said the latter. "He is not being educated anywhere. I don't know what to do with him. He is a difficult subject." That old, double look was on me for a moment; and then his eye darkened with a frown, as it turned, in its aversion, elsewhere. "Humph!" said Mr. Quinion, looking at us both, I thought. "Fine weather!" Silence ensued, and I was considering how I could best disengage my shoulder from his hand, and go away, when he said: "I suppose you are a pretty sharp fellow still? Eh, Brooks?" "Aye! He is sharp enough," said Mr. Murdstone, impatiently. "You had better let him go. He will not thank you for troubling him." On this hint, Mr. Quinion released me, and I made the best of my way home. Looking back as I turned into the front garden, I saw Mr. Murdstone leaning against the wicket of the churchyard, and Mr. Quinion talking to him. They were both looking after me, and I felt that they were speaking of me. Mr. Quinion lay at our house that night. After breakfast, the next morning, I had put my chair away, and was going out of the room, when Mr. Murdstone called me back. He then gravely repaired to another table, where his sister sat herself at her desk. Mr. Quinion, with his hands in his pockets, stood looking out of window; and I stood looking at them all. "David," said Mr. Murdstone, "to the young this is a world for action; not for moping and droning in." --"As you do," added his sister. "Jane Murdstone, leave it to me, if you please. I say, David, to the young this is a world for action, and not for moping and droning in. It is especially so for a young boy of your disposition, which requires a great deal of correcting; and to which no greater service can be done than to force it to conform to the ways of the working world, and to bend it and break it." "For stubbornness won't do here," said his sister. "What it wants, is, to be crushed. And crushed it must be. Shall be, too!" He gave her a look, half in remonstrance, half in approval, and went on: "I suppose you know, David, that I am not rich. At any rate, you know it now. You have received some considerable education already. Education is costly; and even if it were not, and I could afford it, I am of opinion that it would not be at all advantageous to you to be kept at a school. What is before you, is a fight with the world; and the sooner you begin it, the better." I think it occurred to me that I had already begun it, in my poor way: but it occurs to me now, whether or no. "You have heard 'the counting-house' mentioned sometimes," said Mr. Murdstone. "The counting-house, sir?" I repeated. "Of Murdstone and Grinby, in the wine trade," he replied. I suppose I looked uncertain, for he went on hastily: "You have heard the 'counting-house' mentioned, or the business, or the cellars, or the wharf, or something about it." "I think I have heard the business mentioned, sir," I said, remembering what I vaguely knew of his and his sister's resources. "But I don't know when." "It does not matter when," he returned. "Mr. Quinion manages that business." I glanced at the latter deferentially as he stood looking out of window. "Mr. Quinion suggests that it gives employment to some other boys, and that he sees no reason why it shouldn't, on the same terms, give employment to you." "He having," Mr. Quinion observed in a low voice, and half turning round, "no other prospect, Murdstone." Mr. Murdstone, with an impatient, even an angry gesture, resumed, without noticing what he had said: "Those terms are, that you will earn enough for yourself to provide for your eating and drinking, and pocket-money. Your lodging (which I have arranged for) will be paid by me. So will your washing--" "--Which will be kept down to my estimate," said his sister. "Your clothes will be looked after for you, too," said Mr. Murdstone; "as you will not be able, yet awhile, to get them for yourself. So you are now going to London, David, with Mr. Quinion, to begin the world on your own account." "In short, you are provided for," observed his sister; "and will please to do your duty." Though I quite understood that the purpose of this announcement was to get rid of me, I have no distinct remembrance whether it pleased or frightened me. My impression is, that I was in a state of confusion about it, and, oscillating between the two points, touched neither. Nor had I much time for the clearing of my thoughts, as Mr. Quinion was to go upon the morrow. Behold me, on the morrow, in a much-worn little white hat, with a black crape round it for my mother, a black jacket, and a pair of hard stiff corduroy trousers--which Miss Murdstone considered the best armour for the legs in that fight with the world which was now to come off: behold me so attired, and with my little worldly all before me in a small trunk, sitting, a lone lorn child (as Mrs. Gummidge might have said), in the postchaise that was carrying Mr. Quinion to the London coach at Yarmouth! See, how our house and church are lessening in the distance; how the grave beneath the tree is blotted out by intervening objects; how the spire points upward from my old playground no more, and the sky is empty! CHAPTER XI. I BEGIN LIFE ON MY OWN ACCOUNT, AND DON'T LIKE IT. I know enough of the world now, to have almost lost the capacity of being much surprised by anything; but it is matter of some surprise to me, even now, that I can have been so easily thrown away at such an age. A child of excellent abilities, and with strong powers of observation, quick, eager, delicate, and soon hurt bodily or mentally, it seems wonderful to me that nobody should have made any sign in my behalf. But none was made; and I became, at ten years old, a little labouring hind in the service of Murdstone and Grinby. Murdstone and Grinby's warehouse was at the water side. It was down in Blackfriars. Modern improvements have altered the place; but it was the last house at the bottom of a narrow street, curving down hill to the river, with some stairs at the end, where people took boat. It was a crazy old house with a wharf of its own, abutting on the water when the tide was in, and on the mud when the tide was out, and literally overrun with rats. Its panelled rooms, discolored with the dirt and smoke of a hundred years, I dare say; its decaying floors and staircase; the squeaking and scuffling of the old grey rats down in the cellars; and the dirt and rottenness of the place; are things, not of many years ago, in my mind, but of the present instant. They are all before me, just as they were in the evil hour when I went among them for the first time, with my trembling hand in Mr. Quinion's. Murdstone and Grinby's trade was among a good many kinds of people, but an important branch of it was the supply of wines and spirits to certain packet ships. I forget now where they chiefly went, but I think there were some among them that made voyages both to the East and West Indies. I know that a great many empty bottles were one of the consequences of this traffic, and that certain men and boys were employed to examine them against the light, and reject those that were flawed, and to rinse and wash them. When the empty bottles ran short, there were labels to be pasted on full ones, or corks to be fitted to them, or seals to be put upon the corks, or finished bottles to be packed in casks. All this work was my work, and of the boys employed upon it I was one. There were three or four of us, counting me. My working place was established in a corner of the warehouse, where Mr. Quinion could see me, when he chose to stand up on the bottom rail of his stool in the counting-house, and look at me through a window above the desk. Hither, on the first morning of my so auspiciously beginning life on my own account, the oldest of the regular boys was summoned to show me my business. His name was Mick Walker, and he wore a ragged apron and a paper cap. He informed me that his father was a bargeman, and walked, in a black velvet head-dress, in the Lord Mayor's Show. He also informed me that our principal associate would be another boy whom he introduced by the--to me--extraordinary name of Mealy Potatoes. I discovered, however, that this youth had not been christened by that name, but that it had been bestowed upon him in the warehouse, on account of his complexion, which was pale or mealy. Mealy's father was a waterman, who had the additional distinction of being a fireman, and was engaged as such at one of the large theatres; where some young relation of Mealy's--I think his little sister--did Imps in the Pantomimes. No words can express the secret agony of my soul as I sunk into this companionship; compared these henceforth every-day associates with those of my happier childhood--not to say with Steerforth, Traddles, and the rest of those boys; and felt my hopes of growing up to be a learned and distinguished man, crushed in my bosom. The deep remembrance of the sense I had, of being utterly without hope now; of the shame I felt in my position; of the misery it was to my young heart to believe that day by day what I had learned, and thought, and delighted in, and raised my fancy and my emulation up by, would pass away from me, little by little, never to be brought back any more; cannot be written. As often as Mick Walker went away in the course of that forenoon, I mingled my tears with the water in which I was washing the bottles; and sobbed as if there were a flaw in my own breast, and it were in danger of bursting. The counting-house clock was at half-past twelve, and there was general preparation for going to dinner, when Mr. Quinion tapped at the counting-house window, and beckoned to me to go in. I went in, and found there a stoutish, middle-aged person, in a brown surtout and black tights and shoes, with no more hair upon his head (which was a large one, and very shining) than there is upon an egg, and with a very extensive face, which he turned full upon me. His clothes were shabby, but he had an imposing shirt-collar on. He carried a jaunty sort of a stick, with a large pair of rusty tassels to it; and a quizzing-glass hung outside his coat,--for ornament, I afterwards found, as he very seldom looked through it, and couldn't see anything when he did. "This," said Mr. Quinion, in allusion to myself, "is he." "This," said the stranger, with a certain condescending roll in his voice, and a certain indescribable air of doing something genteel, which impressed me very much, "is Master Copperfield. I hope I see you well, sir?" I said I was very well, and hoped he was. I was sufficiently ill at ease, Heaven knows; but it was not in my nature to complain much at that time of my life, so I said I was very well, and hoped he was. "I am," said the stranger, "thank Heaven, quite well. I have received a letter from Mr. Murdstone, in which he mentions that he would desire me to receive into an apartment in the rear of my house, which is at present unoccupied--and is, in short, to be let as a--in short," said the stranger, with a smile and in a burst of confidence, "as a bed-room--the young beginner whom I have now the pleasure to--" and the stranger waved his hand, and settled his chin in his shirt collar. "This is Mr. Micawber," said Mr. Quinion to me. "Ahem!" said the stranger, "that is my name." "Mr. Micawber," said Mr. Quinion, "is known to Mr. Murdstone. He takes orders for us on commission, when he can get any. He has been written to by Mr. Murdstone, on the subject of your lodgings, and he will receive you as a lodger." "My address," said Mr. Micawber, "is Windsor Terrace, City Road. I--in short," said Mr. Micawber, with the same genteel air, and in another burst of confidence--"I live there." I made him a bow. "Under the impression," said Mr. Micawber, "that your peregrinations in this metropolis have not as yet been extensive, and that you might have some difficulty in penetrating the arcana of the Modern Babylon in the direction of the City Road--in short," said Mr. Micawber, in another burst of confidence, "that you might lose yourself--I shall be happy to call this evening, and install you in the knowledge of the nearest way." I thanked him with all my heart, for it was friendly in him to offer to take that trouble. "At what hour," said Mr. Micawber, "shall I--" "At about eight," said Mr. Quinion. "At about eight," said Mr. Micawber. "I beg to wish you good day, Mr. Quinion. I will intrude no longer." So he put on his hat, and went out with his cane under his arm: very upright, and humming a tune when he was clear of the counting-house. Mr. Quinion then formally engaged me to be as useful as I could in the warehouse of Murdstone and Grinby, at a salary, I think, of six shillings a week. I am not clear whether it was six or seven. I am inclined to believe, from my uncertainty on this head, that it was six at first and seven afterwards. He paid me a week down (from his own pocket, I believe), and I gave Mealy sixpence out of it to get my trunk carried to Windsor Terrace at night: it being too heavy for my strength, small as it was. I paid sixpence more for my dinner, which was a meat pie and a turn at a neighbouring pump; and passed the hour which was allowed for that meal, in walking about the streets. At the appointed time in the evening, Mr. Micawber reappeared. I washed my hands and face, to do the greater honour to his gentility, and we walked to our house, as I suppose I must now call it, together; Mr. Micawber impressing the names of streets, and the shapes of corner houses upon me, as we went along, that I might find my way back, easily, in the morning. Arrived at his house in Windsor Terrace (which I noticed was shabby like himself, but also, like himself, made all the show it could), he presented me to Mrs. Micawber, a thin and faded lady, not at all young, who was sitting in

recollect

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

with them; you had better do it yourself." But here Peggotty, who had been going about from one to another in a hurried way, kissing everybody, called out from the cart, in which we all were by this time (Em'ly and I on two little chairs, side by side), that Mrs. Gummidge must do it. So Mrs. Gummidge did it; and, I am sorry to relate, cast a damp upon the festive character of our departure, by immediately bursting into tears, and sinking subdued into the arms of Ham, with the declaration that she knowed she was a burden, and had better be carried to the House at once. Which I really thought was a sensible idea, that Ham might have acted on. [Illustration: Mrs. Gummidge casts a damp on our departure.] Away we went, however, on our holiday excursion; and the first thing we did was to stop at a church, where Mr. Barkis tied the horse to some rails, and went in with Peggotty, leaving little Em'ly and me alone in the chaise. I took that occasion to put my arm round Em'ly's waist, and propose that as I was going away so very soon now, we should determine to be very affectionate to one another, and very happy, all day. Little Em'ly consenting, and allowing me to kiss her, I became desperate; informing her, I recollect, that I never could love another, and that I was prepared to shed the blood of anybody who should aspire to her affections. How merry little Em'ly made herself about it! With what a demure assumption of being immensely older and wiser than I, the fairy little woman said I was "a silly boy;" and then laughed so charmingly that I forgot the pain of being called by that disparaging name, in the pleasure of looking at her. Mr. Barkis and Peggotty were a good while in the church, but came out at last, and then we drove away into the country. As we were going along, Mr. Barkis turned to me, and said, with a wink,--by-the-by, I should hardly have thought, before, that he _could_ wink: "What name was it as I wrote up in the cart?" "Clara Peggotty," I answered. "What name would it be as I should write up now, if there was a tilt here?" "Clara Peggotty, again?" I suggested. "Clara Peggotty BARKIS!" he returned, and burst into a roar of laughter that shook the chaise. In a word, they were married, and had gone into the church for no other purpose. Peggotty was resolved that it should be quietly done; and the clerk had given her away, and there had been no witnesses of the ceremony. She was a little confused when Mr. Barkis made this abrupt announcement of their union, and could not hug me enough in token of her unimpaired affection; but she soon became herself again, and said she was very glad it was over. We drove to a little inn in a bye road, where we were expected, and where we had a very comfortable dinner, and passed the day with great satisfaction. If Peggotty had been married every day for the last ten years, she could hardly have been more at her ease about it; it made no sort of difference in her: she was just the same as ever, and went out for a stroll with little Em'ly and me before tea, while Mr. Barkis philosophically smoked his pipe, and enjoyed himself, I suppose, with the contemplation of his happiness. If so, it sharpened his appetite; for I distinctly call to mind that, although he had eaten a good deal of pork and greens at dinner, and had finished off with a fowl or two, he was obliged to have cold boiled bacon for tea, and disposed of a large quantity without any emotion. I have often thought, since, what an odd, innocent, out-of-the-way kind of wedding it must have been! We got into the chaise again soon after dark, and drove cosily back, looking up at the stars, and talking about them. I was their chief exponent, and opened Mr. Barkis's mind to an amazing extent. I told him all I knew, but he would have believed anything I might have taken it into my head to impart to him; for he had a profound veneration for my abilities, and informed his wife in my hearing, on that very occasion, that I was "a young Roeshus"--by which I think he meant, prodigy. When we had exhausted the subject of the stars, or rather when I had exhausted the mental faculties of Mr. Barkis, little Em'ly and I made a cloak of an old wrapper, and sat under it for the rest of the journey. Ah, how I loved her! What happiness (I thought) if we were married, and were going away anywhere to live among the trees and in the fields, never growing older, never growing wiser, children ever, rambling hand in hand through sunshine and among flowery meadows, laying down our heads on moss at night, in a sweet sleep of purity and peace, and buried by the birds when we were dead! Some such picture, with no real world in it, bright with the light of our innocence, and vague as the stars afar off, was in my mind all the way. I am glad to think there were two such guileless hearts at Peggotty's marriage as little Em'ly's and mine. I am glad to think the Loves and Graces took such airy forms in its homely procession. Well, we came to the old boat again in good time at night; and there Mr. and Mrs. Barkis bade us good-bye, and drove away snugly to their own home. I felt then, for the first time, that I had lost Peggotty. I should have gone to bed with a sore heart indeed under any other roof but that which sheltered little Em'ly's head. Mr. Peggotty and Ham knew what was in my thoughts as well as I did, and were ready with some supper and their hospitable faces to drive it away. Little Em'ly came and sat beside me on the locker, for the only time in all that visit; and it was altogether a wonderful close to a wonderful day. It was a night tide; and soon after we went to bed, Mr. Peggotty and Ham went out to fish. I felt very brave at being left alone in the solitary house, the protector of Em'ly and Mrs. Gummidge, and only wished that a lion or a serpent, or any ill-disposed monster, would make an attack upon us, that I might destroy him, and cover myself with glory. But as nothing of the sort happened to be walking about on Yarmouth flats that night, I provided the best substitute I could by dreaming of dragons until morning. With morning came Peggotty; who called to me, as usual, under my window as if Mr. Barkis the carrier had been from first to last a dream too. After breakfast she took me to her own home, and a beautiful little home it was. Of all the moveables in it, I must have been most impressed by a certain old bureau of some dark wood in the parlor (the tile-floored kitchen was the general sitting-room), with a retreating top which opened, let down, and became a desk, within which, was a large quarto edition of Fox's Book of Martyrs. This precious volume, of which I do not recollect one word, I immediately discovered and immediately applied myself to; and I never visited the house afterwards, but I kneeled on a chair, opened the casket where this gem was enshrined, spread my arms over the desk, and fell to devouring the book afresh. I was chiefly edified, I am afraid, by the pictures, which were numerous, and represented all kinds of dismal horrors; but the Martyrs and Peggotty's house have been inseparable in my mind ever since, and are now. I took leave of Mr. Peggotty, and Ham, and Mrs. Gummidge, and little Em'ly, that day; and passed the night at Peggotty's, in a little room in the roof (with the crocodile-book on a shelf by the bed's head) which was to be always mine, Peggotty said, and should always be kept for me in exactly the same state. "Young or old, Davy dear, as long as I am alive and have this house over my head," said Peggotty, "you shall find it as if I expected you here directly minute. I shall keep it every day, as I used to keep your old little room, my darling; and if you was to go to China, you might think of it as being kept just the same, all the time you were away." I felt the truth and constancy of my dear old nurse, with all my heart, and thanked her as well as I could. That was not very well, for she spoke to me thus, with her arms round my neck, in the morning, and I was going home in the morning, and I went home in the morning, with herself and Mr. Barkis in the cart. They left me at the gate, not easily or lightly; and it was a strange sight to me to see the cart go on, taking Peggotty away, and leaving me under the old elm-trees looking at the house, in which there was no face to look on mine with love or liking any more. And now I fell into a state of neglect, which I cannot look back upon without compassion. I fell at once into a solitary condition,--apart from all friendly notice, apart from the society of all other boys of my own age, apart from all companionship but my own spiritless thoughts,--which seems to cast its gloom upon this paper as I write. What would I have given, to have been sent to the hardest school that ever was kept!--to have been taught something, anyhow, anywhere! No such hope dawned upon me. They disliked me; and they sullenly, sternly, steadily, overlooked me. I think Mr. Murdstone's means were straitened at about this time; but it is little to the purpose. He could not bear me; and in putting me from him he tried, as I believe, to put away the notion that I had any claim upon him--and succeeded. I was not actively ill-used. I was not beaten, or starved; but the wrong that was done to me had no intervals of relenting, and was done in a systematic, passionless manner. Day after day, week after week, month after month, I was coldly neglected. I wonder sometimes, when I think of it, what they would have done if I had been taken with an illness; whether I should have lain down in my lonely room, and languished through it in my usual solitary way, or whether anybody would have helped me out. When Mr. and Miss Murdstone were at home, I took my meals with them; in their absence, I ate and drank by myself. At all times I lounged about the house and neighbourhood quite disregarded, except that they were jealous of my making any friends: thinking, perhaps, that, if I did, I might complain to some one. For this reason, though Mr. Chillip often asked me to go and see him (he was a widower, having, some years before that, lost a little small light-haired wife, whom I can just remember connecting in my own thoughts with a pale tortoise-shell cat), it was but seldom that I enjoyed the happiness of passing an afternoon in his closet of a surgery; reading some book that was new to me, with the smell of the whole pharmacopoeia coming up my nose, or pounding something in a mortar under his mild directions. For the same reason, added no doubt to the old dislike of her, I was seldom allowed to visit Peggotty. Faithful to her promise, she either came to see me, or met me somewhere near, once every week, and never empty-handed; but many and bitter were the disappointments I had, in being refused permission to pay a visit to her at her house. Some few times, however, at long intervals, I was allowed to go there; and then I found out that Mr. Barkis was something of a miser, or as Peggotty dutifully expressed it, was "a little near," and kept a heap of money in a box under his bed, which he pretended was only full of coats and trousers. In this coffer, his riches hid themselves with such a tenacious modesty, that the smallest instalments could only be tempted out by artifice; so that Peggotty had to prepare a long and elaborate scheme, a very Gunpowder Plot, for every Saturday's expenses. All this time I was so conscious of the waste of any promise I had given, and of my being utterly neglected, that I should have been perfectly miserable, I have no doubt, but for the old books. They were my only comfort; and I was as true to them as they were to me, and read them over and over I don't know how many times more. I now approach a period of my life, which I can never lose the remembrance of, while I remember any thing; and the recollection of which has often, without my invocation, come before me like a ghost, and haunted happier times. I had been out, one day, loitering somewhere, in the listless, meditative manner that my way of life engendered, when, turning the corner of a lane near our house, I came upon Mr. Murdstone walking with a gentleman. I was confused, and was going by them, when the gentleman cried: "What! Brooks!" "No, sir, David Copperfield," I said. "Don't tell me. You are Brooks," said the gentleman. "You are Brooks of Sheffield. That's your name." At these words, I observed the gentleman more attentively. His laugh coming to my remembrance too, I knew him to be Mr. Quinion, whom I had gone over to Lowestoft with Mr. Murdstone to see, before--it is no matter--I need not recall when. "And how do you get on, and where are you being educated, Brooks?" said Mr. Quinion. He had put his hand upon my shoulder, and turned me about, to walk with them. I did not know what to reply, and glanced dubiously at Mr. Murdstone. "He is at home at present," said the latter. "He is not being educated anywhere. I don't know what to do with him. He is a difficult subject." That old, double look was on me for a moment; and then his eye darkened with a frown, as it turned, in its aversion, elsewhere. "Humph!" said Mr. Quinion, looking at us both, I thought. "Fine weather!" Silence ensued, and I was considering how I could best disengage my shoulder from his hand, and go away, when he said: "I suppose you are a pretty sharp fellow still? Eh, Brooks?" "Aye! He is sharp enough," said Mr. Murdstone, impatiently. "You had better let him go. He will not thank you for troubling him." On this hint, Mr. Quinion released me, and I made the best of my way home. Looking back as I turned into the front garden, I saw Mr. Murdstone leaning against the wicket of the churchyard, and Mr. Quinion talking to him. They were both looking after me, and I felt that they were speaking of me. Mr. Quinion lay at our house that night. After breakfast, the next morning, I had put my chair away, and was going out of the room, when Mr. Murdstone called me back. He then gravely repaired to another table, where his sister sat herself at her desk. Mr. Quinion, with his hands in his pockets, stood looking out of window; and I stood looking at them all. "David," said Mr. Murdstone, "to the young this is a world for action; not for moping and droning in." --"As you do," added his sister. "Jane Murdstone, leave it to me, if you please. I say, David, to the young this is a world for action, and not for moping and droning in. It is especially so for a young boy of your disposition, which requires a great deal of correcting; and to which no greater service can be done than to force it to conform to the ways of the working world, and to bend it and break it." "For stubbornness won't do here," said his sister. "What it wants, is, to be crushed. And crushed it must be. Shall be, too!" He gave her a look, half in remonstrance, half in approval, and went on: "I suppose you know, David, that I am not rich. At any rate, you know it now. You have received some considerable education already. Education is costly; and even if it were not, and I could afford it, I am of opinion that it would not be at all advantageous to you to be kept at a school. What is before you, is a fight with the world; and the sooner you begin it, the better." I think it occurred to me that I had already begun it, in my poor way: but it occurs to me now, whether or no. "You have heard 'the counting-house' mentioned sometimes," said Mr. Murdstone. "The counting-house, sir?" I repeated. "Of Murdstone and Grinby, in the wine trade," he replied. I suppose I looked uncertain, for he went on hastily: "You have heard the 'counting-house' mentioned, or the business, or the cellars, or the wharf, or something about it." "I think I have heard the business mentioned, sir," I said, remembering what I vaguely knew of his and his sister's resources. "But I don't know when." "It does not matter when," he returned. "Mr. Quinion manages that business." I glanced at the latter deferentially as he stood looking out of window. "Mr. Quinion suggests that it gives employment to some other boys, and that he sees no reason why it shouldn't, on the same terms, give employment to you." "He having," Mr. Quinion observed in a low voice, and half turning round, "no other prospect, Murdstone." Mr. Murdstone, with an impatient, even an angry gesture, resumed, without noticing what he had said: "Those terms are, that you will earn enough for yourself to provide for your eating and drinking, and pocket-money. Your lodging (which I have arranged for) will be paid by me. So will your washing--" "--Which will be kept down to my estimate," said his sister. "Your clothes will be looked after for you, too," said Mr. Murdstone; "as you will not be able, yet awhile, to get them for yourself. So you are now going to London, David, with Mr. Quinion, to begin the world on your own account." "In short, you are provided for," observed his sister; "and will please to do your duty." Though I quite understood that the purpose of this announcement was to get rid of me, I have no distinct remembrance whether it pleased or frightened me. My impression is, that I was in a state of confusion about it, and, oscillating between the two points, touched neither. Nor had I much time for the clearing of my thoughts, as Mr. Quinion was to go upon the morrow. Behold me, on the morrow, in a much-worn little white hat, with a black crape round it for my mother, a black jacket, and a pair of hard stiff corduroy trousers--which Miss Murdstone considered the best armour for the legs in that fight with the world which was now to come off: behold me so attired, and with my little worldly all before me in a small trunk, sitting, a lone lorn child (as Mrs. Gummidge might have said), in the postchaise that was carrying Mr. Quinion to the London coach at Yarmouth! See, how our house and church are lessening in the distance; how the grave beneath the tree is blotted out by intervening objects; how the spire points upward from my old playground no more, and the sky is empty! CHAPTER XI. I BEGIN LIFE ON MY OWN ACCOUNT, AND DON'T LIKE IT. I know enough of the world now, to have almost lost the capacity of being much surprised by anything; but it is matter of some surprise to me, even now, that I can have been so easily thrown away at such an age. A child of excellent abilities, and with strong powers of observation, quick, eager, delicate, and soon hurt bodily or mentally, it seems wonderful to me that nobody should have made any sign in my behalf. But none was made; and I became, at ten years old, a little labouring hind in the service of Murdstone and Grinby. Murdstone and Grinby's warehouse was at the water side. It was down in Blackfriars. Modern improvements have altered the place; but it was the last house at the bottom of a narrow street, curving down hill to the river, with some stairs at the end, where people took boat. It was a crazy old house with a wharf of its own, abutting on the water when the tide was in, and on the mud when the tide was out, and literally overrun with rats. Its panelled rooms, discolored with the dirt and smoke of a hundred years, I dare say; its decaying floors and staircase; the squeaking and scuffling of the old grey rats down in the cellars; and the dirt and rottenness of the place; are things, not of many years ago, in my mind, but of the present instant. They are all before me, just as they were in the evil hour when I went among them for the first time, with my trembling hand in Mr. Quinion's. Murdstone and Grinby's trade was among a good many kinds of people, but an important branch of it was the supply of wines and spirits to certain packet ships. I forget now where they chiefly went, but I think there were some among them that made voyages both to the East and West Indies. I know that a great many empty bottles were one of the consequences of this traffic, and that certain men and boys were employed to examine them against the light, and reject those that were flawed, and to rinse and wash them. When the empty bottles ran short, there were labels to be pasted on full ones, or corks to be fitted to them, or seals to be put upon the corks, or finished bottles to be packed in casks. All this work was my work, and of the boys employed upon it I was one. There were three or four of us, counting me. My working place was established in a corner of the warehouse, where Mr. Quinion could see me, when he chose to stand up on the bottom rail of his stool in the counting-house, and look at me through a window above the desk. Hither, on the first morning of my so auspiciously beginning life on my own account, the oldest of the regular boys was summoned to show me my business. His name was Mick Walker, and he wore a ragged apron and a paper cap. He informed me that his father was a bargeman, and walked, in a black velvet head-dress, in the Lord Mayor's Show. He also informed me that our principal associate would be another boy whom he introduced by the--to me--extraordinary name of Mealy Potatoes. I discovered, however, that this youth had not been christened by that name, but that it had been bestowed upon him in the warehouse, on account of his complexion, which was pale or mealy. Mealy's father was a waterman, who had the additional distinction of being a fireman, and was engaged as such at one of the large theatres; where some young relation of Mealy's--I think his little sister--did Imps in the Pantomimes. No words can express the secret agony of my soul as I sunk into this companionship; compared these henceforth every-day associates with those of my happier childhood--not to say with Steerforth, Traddles, and the rest of those boys; and felt my hopes of growing up to be a learned and distinguished man, crushed in my bosom. The deep remembrance of the sense I had, of being utterly without hope now; of the shame I felt in my position; of the misery it was to my young heart to believe that day by day what I had learned, and thought, and delighted in, and raised my fancy and my emulation up by, would pass away from me, little by little, never to be brought back any more; cannot be written. As often as Mick Walker went away in the course of that forenoon, I mingled my tears with the water in which I was washing the bottles; and sobbed as if there were a flaw in my own breast, and it were in danger of bursting. The counting-house clock was at half-past twelve, and there was general preparation for going to dinner, when Mr. Quinion tapped at the counting-house window, and beckoned to me to go in. I went in, and found there a stoutish, middle-aged person, in a brown surtout and black tights and shoes, with no more hair upon his head (which was a large one, and very shining) than there is upon an egg, and with a very extensive face, which he turned full upon me. His clothes were shabby, but he had an imposing shirt-collar on. He carried a jaunty sort of a stick, with a large pair of rusty tassels to it; and a quizzing-glass hung outside his coat,--for ornament, I afterwards found, as he very seldom looked through it, and couldn't see anything when he did. "This," said Mr. Quinion, in allusion to myself, "is he." "This," said the stranger, with a certain condescending roll in his voice, and a certain indescribable air of doing something genteel, which impressed me very much, "is Master Copperfield. I hope I see you well, sir?" I said I was very well, and hoped he was. I was sufficiently ill at ease, Heaven knows; but it was not in my nature to complain much at that time of my life, so I said I was very well, and hoped he was. "I am," said the stranger, "thank Heaven, quite well. I have received a letter from Mr. Murdstone, in which he mentions that he would desire me to receive into an apartment in the rear of my house, which is at present unoccupied--and is, in short, to be let as a--in short," said the stranger, with a smile and in a burst of confidence, "as a bed-room--the young beginner whom I have now the pleasure to--" and the stranger waved his hand, and settled his chin in his shirt collar. "This is Mr. Micawber," said Mr. Quinion to me. "Ahem!" said the stranger, "that is my name." "Mr. Micawber," said Mr. Quinion, "is known to Mr. Murdstone. He takes orders for us on commission, when he can get any. He has been written to by Mr. Murdstone, on the subject of your lodgings, and he will receive you as a lodger." "My address," said Mr. Micawber, "is Windsor Terrace, City Road. I--in short," said Mr. Micawber, with the same genteel air, and in another burst of confidence--"I live there." I made him a bow. "Under the impression," said Mr. Micawber, "that your peregrinations in this metropolis have not as yet been extensive, and that you might have some difficulty in penetrating the arcana of the Modern Babylon in the direction of the City Road--in short," said Mr. Micawber, in another burst of confidence, "that you might lose yourself--I shall be happy to call this evening, and install you in the knowledge of the nearest way." I thanked him with all my heart, for it was friendly in him to offer to take that trouble. "At what hour," said Mr. Micawber, "shall I--" "At about eight," said Mr. Quinion. "At about eight," said Mr. Micawber. "I beg to wish you good day, Mr. Quinion. I will intrude no longer." So he put on his hat, and went out with his cane under his arm: very upright, and humming a tune when he was clear of the counting-house. Mr. Quinion then formally engaged me to be as useful as I could in the warehouse of Murdstone and Grinby, at a salary, I think, of six shillings a week. I am not clear whether it was six or seven. I am inclined to believe, from my uncertainty on this head, that it was six at first and seven afterwards. He paid me a week down (from his own pocket, I believe), and I gave Mealy sixpence out of it to get my trunk carried to Windsor Terrace at night: it being too heavy for my strength, small as it was. I paid sixpence more for my dinner, which was a meat pie and a turn at a neighbouring pump; and passed the hour which was allowed for that meal, in walking about the streets. At the appointed time in the evening, Mr. Micawber reappeared. I washed my hands and face, to do the greater honour to his gentility, and we walked to our house, as I suppose I must now call it, together; Mr. Micawber impressing the names of streets, and the shapes of corner houses upon me, as we went along, that I might find my way back, easily, in the morning. Arrived at his house in Windsor Terrace (which I noticed was shabby like himself, but also, like himself, made all the show it could), he presented me to Mrs. Micawber, a thin and faded lady, not at all young, who was sitting in

keep

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

with them; you had better do it yourself." But here Peggotty, who had been going about from one to another in a hurried way, kissing everybody, called out from the cart, in which we all were by this time (Em'ly and I on two little chairs, side by side), that Mrs. Gummidge must do it. So Mrs. Gummidge did it; and, I am sorry to relate, cast a damp upon the festive character of our departure, by immediately bursting into tears, and sinking subdued into the arms of Ham, with the declaration that she knowed she was a burden, and had better be carried to the House at once. Which I really thought was a sensible idea, that Ham might have acted on. [Illustration: Mrs. Gummidge casts a damp on our departure.] Away we went, however, on our holiday excursion; and the first thing we did was to stop at a church, where Mr. Barkis tied the horse to some rails, and went in with Peggotty, leaving little Em'ly and me alone in the chaise. I took that occasion to put my arm round Em'ly's waist, and propose that as I was going away so very soon now, we should determine to be very affectionate to one another, and very happy, all day. Little Em'ly consenting, and allowing me to kiss her, I became desperate; informing her, I recollect, that I never could love another, and that I was prepared to shed the blood of anybody who should aspire to her affections. How merry little Em'ly made herself about it! With what a demure assumption of being immensely older and wiser than I, the fairy little woman said I was "a silly boy;" and then laughed so charmingly that I forgot the pain of being called by that disparaging name, in the pleasure of looking at her. Mr. Barkis and Peggotty were a good while in the church, but came out at last, and then we drove away into the country. As we were going along, Mr. Barkis turned to me, and said, with a wink,--by-the-by, I should hardly have thought, before, that he _could_ wink: "What name was it as I wrote up in the cart?" "Clara Peggotty," I answered. "What name would it be as I should write up now, if there was a tilt here?" "Clara Peggotty, again?" I suggested. "Clara Peggotty BARKIS!" he returned, and burst into a roar of laughter that shook the chaise. In a word, they were married, and had gone into the church for no other purpose. Peggotty was resolved that it should be quietly done; and the clerk had given her away, and there had been no witnesses of the ceremony. She was a little confused when Mr. Barkis made this abrupt announcement of their union, and could not hug me enough in token of her unimpaired affection; but she soon became herself again, and said she was very glad it was over. We drove to a little inn in a bye road, where we were expected, and where we had a very comfortable dinner, and passed the day with great satisfaction. If Peggotty had been married every day for the last ten years, she could hardly have been more at her ease about it; it made no sort of difference in her: she was just the same as ever, and went out for a stroll with little Em'ly and me before tea, while Mr. Barkis philosophically smoked his pipe, and enjoyed himself, I suppose, with the contemplation of his happiness. If so, it sharpened his appetite; for I distinctly call to mind that, although he had eaten a good deal of pork and greens at dinner, and had finished off with a fowl or two, he was obliged to have cold boiled bacon for tea, and disposed of a large quantity without any emotion. I have often thought, since, what an odd, innocent, out-of-the-way kind of wedding it must have been! We got into the chaise again soon after dark, and drove cosily back, looking up at the stars, and talking about them. I was their chief exponent, and opened Mr. Barkis's mind to an amazing extent. I told him all I knew, but he would have believed anything I might have taken it into my head to impart to him; for he had a profound veneration for my abilities, and informed his wife in my hearing, on that very occasion, that I was "a young Roeshus"--by which I think he meant, prodigy. When we had exhausted the subject of the stars, or rather when I had exhausted the mental faculties of Mr. Barkis, little Em'ly and I made a cloak of an old wrapper, and sat under it for the rest of the journey. Ah, how I loved her! What happiness (I thought) if we were married, and were going away anywhere to live among the trees and in the fields, never growing older, never growing wiser, children ever, rambling hand in hand through sunshine and among flowery meadows, laying down our heads on moss at night, in a sweet sleep of purity and peace, and buried by the birds when we were dead! Some such picture, with no real world in it, bright with the light of our innocence, and vague as the stars afar off, was in my mind all the way. I am glad to think there were two such guileless hearts at Peggotty's marriage as little Em'ly's and mine. I am glad to think the Loves and Graces took such airy forms in its homely procession. Well, we came to the old boat again in good time at night; and there Mr. and Mrs. Barkis bade us good-bye, and drove away snugly to their own home. I felt then, for the first time, that I had lost Peggotty. I should have gone to bed with a sore heart indeed under any other roof but that which sheltered little Em'ly's head. Mr. Peggotty and Ham knew what was in my thoughts as well as I did, and were ready with some supper and their hospitable faces to drive it away. Little Em'ly came and sat beside me on the locker, for the only time in all that visit; and it was altogether a wonderful close to a wonderful day. It was a night tide; and soon after we went to bed, Mr. Peggotty and Ham went out to fish. I felt very brave at being left alone in the solitary house, the protector of Em'ly and Mrs. Gummidge, and only wished that a lion or a serpent, or any ill-disposed monster, would make an attack upon us, that I might destroy him, and cover myself with glory. But as nothing of the sort happened to be walking about on Yarmouth flats that night, I provided the best substitute I could by dreaming of dragons until morning. With morning came Peggotty; who called to me, as usual, under my window as if Mr. Barkis the carrier had been from first to last a dream too. After breakfast she took me to her own home, and a beautiful little home it was. Of all the moveables in it, I must have been most impressed by a certain old bureau of some dark wood in the parlor (the tile-floored kitchen was the general sitting-room), with a retreating top which opened, let down, and became a desk, within which, was a large quarto edition of Fox's Book of Martyrs. This precious volume, of which I do not recollect one word, I immediately discovered and immediately applied myself to; and I never visited the house afterwards, but I kneeled on a chair, opened the casket where this gem was enshrined, spread my arms over the desk, and fell to devouring the book afresh. I was chiefly edified, I am afraid, by the pictures, which were numerous, and represented all kinds of dismal horrors; but the Martyrs and Peggotty's house have been inseparable in my mind ever since, and are now. I took leave of Mr. Peggotty, and Ham, and Mrs. Gummidge, and little Em'ly, that day; and passed the night at Peggotty's, in a little room in the roof (with the crocodile-book on a shelf by the bed's head) which was to be always mine, Peggotty said, and should always be kept for me in exactly the same state. "Young or old, Davy dear, as long as I am alive and have this house over my head," said Peggotty, "you shall find it as if I expected you here directly minute. I shall keep it every day, as I used to keep your old little room, my darling; and if you was to go to China, you might think of it as being kept just the same, all the time you were away." I felt the truth and constancy of my dear old nurse, with all my heart, and thanked her as well as I could. That was not very well, for she spoke to me thus, with her arms round my neck, in the morning, and I was going home in the morning, and I went home in the morning, with herself and Mr. Barkis in the cart. They left me at the gate, not easily or lightly; and it was a strange sight to me to see the cart go on, taking Peggotty away, and leaving me under the old elm-trees looking at the house, in which there was no face to look on mine with love or liking any more. And now I fell into a state of neglect, which I cannot look back upon without compassion. I fell at once into a solitary condition,--apart from all friendly notice, apart from the society of all other boys of my own age, apart from all companionship but my own spiritless thoughts,--which seems to cast its gloom upon this paper as I write. What would I have given, to have been sent to the hardest school that ever was kept!--to have been taught something, anyhow, anywhere! No such hope dawned upon me. They disliked me; and they sullenly, sternly, steadily, overlooked me. I think Mr. Murdstone's means were straitened at about this time; but it is little to the purpose. He could not bear me; and in putting me from him he tried, as I believe, to put away the notion that I had any claim upon him--and succeeded. I was not actively ill-used. I was not beaten, or starved; but the wrong that was done to me had no intervals of relenting, and was done in a systematic, passionless manner. Day after day, week after week, month after month, I was coldly neglected. I wonder sometimes, when I think of it, what they would have done if I had been taken with an illness; whether I should have lain down in my lonely room, and languished through it in my usual solitary way, or whether anybody would have helped me out. When Mr. and Miss Murdstone were at home, I took my meals with them; in their absence, I ate and drank by myself. At all times I lounged about the house and neighbourhood quite disregarded, except that they were jealous of my making any friends: thinking, perhaps, that, if I did, I might complain to some one. For this reason, though Mr. Chillip often asked me to go and see him (he was a widower, having, some years before that, lost a little small light-haired wife, whom I can just remember connecting in my own thoughts with a pale tortoise-shell cat), it was but seldom that I enjoyed the happiness of passing an afternoon in his closet of a surgery; reading some book that was new to me, with the smell of the whole pharmacopoeia coming up my nose, or pounding something in a mortar under his mild directions. For the same reason, added no doubt to the old dislike of her, I was seldom allowed to visit Peggotty. Faithful to her promise, she either came to see me, or met me somewhere near, once every week, and never empty-handed; but many and bitter were the disappointments I had, in being refused permission to pay a visit to her at her house. Some few times, however, at long intervals, I was allowed to go there; and then I found out that Mr. Barkis was something of a miser, or as Peggotty dutifully expressed it, was "a little near," and kept a heap of money in a box under his bed, which he pretended was only full of coats and trousers. In this coffer, his riches hid themselves with such a tenacious modesty, that the smallest instalments could only be tempted out by artifice; so that Peggotty had to prepare a long and elaborate scheme, a very Gunpowder Plot, for every Saturday's expenses. All this time I was so conscious of the waste of any promise I had given, and of my being utterly neglected, that I should have been perfectly miserable, I have no doubt, but for the old books. They were my only comfort; and I was as true to them as they were to me, and read them over and over I don't know how many times more. I now approach a period of my life, which I can never lose the remembrance of, while I remember any thing; and the recollection of which has often, without my invocation, come before me like a ghost, and haunted happier times. I had been out, one day, loitering somewhere, in the listless, meditative manner that my way of life engendered, when, turning the corner of a lane near our house, I came upon Mr. Murdstone walking with a gentleman. I was confused, and was going by them, when the gentleman cried: "What! Brooks!" "No, sir, David Copperfield," I said. "Don't tell me. You are Brooks," said the gentleman. "You are Brooks of Sheffield. That's your name." At these words, I observed the gentleman more attentively. His laugh coming to my remembrance too, I knew him to be Mr. Quinion, whom I had gone over to Lowestoft with Mr. Murdstone to see, before--it is no matter--I need not recall when. "And how do you get on, and where are you being educated, Brooks?" said Mr. Quinion. He had put his hand upon my shoulder, and turned me about, to walk with them. I did not know what to reply, and glanced dubiously at Mr. Murdstone. "He is at home at present," said the latter. "He is not being educated anywhere. I don't know what to do with him. He is a difficult subject." That old, double look was on me for a moment; and then his eye darkened with a frown, as it turned, in its aversion, elsewhere. "Humph!" said Mr. Quinion, looking at us both, I thought. "Fine weather!" Silence ensued, and I was considering how I could best disengage my shoulder from his hand, and go away, when he said: "I suppose you are a pretty sharp fellow still? Eh, Brooks?" "Aye! He is sharp enough," said Mr. Murdstone, impatiently. "You had better let him go. He will not thank you for troubling him." On this hint, Mr. Quinion released me, and I made the best of my way home. Looking back as I turned into the front garden, I saw Mr. Murdstone leaning against the wicket of the churchyard, and Mr. Quinion talking to him. They were both looking after me, and I felt that they were speaking of me. Mr. Quinion lay at our house that night. After breakfast, the next morning, I had put my chair away, and was going out of the room, when Mr. Murdstone called me back. He then gravely repaired to another table, where his sister sat herself at her desk. Mr. Quinion, with his hands in his pockets, stood looking out of window; and I stood looking at them all. "David," said Mr. Murdstone, "to the young this is a world for action; not for moping and droning in." --"As you do," added his sister. "Jane Murdstone, leave it to me, if you please. I say, David, to the young this is a world for action, and not for moping and droning in. It is especially so for a young boy of your disposition, which requires a great deal of correcting; and to which no greater service can be done than to force it to conform to the ways of the working world, and to bend it and break it." "For stubbornness won't do here," said his sister. "What it wants, is, to be crushed. And crushed it must be. Shall be, too!" He gave her a look, half in remonstrance, half in approval, and went on: "I suppose you know, David, that I am not rich. At any rate, you know it now. You have received some considerable education already. Education is costly; and even if it were not, and I could afford it, I am of opinion that it would not be at all advantageous to you to be kept at a school. What is before you, is a fight with the world; and the sooner you begin it, the better." I think it occurred to me that I had already begun it, in my poor way: but it occurs to me now, whether or no. "You have heard 'the counting-house' mentioned sometimes," said Mr. Murdstone. "The counting-house, sir?" I repeated. "Of Murdstone and Grinby, in the wine trade," he replied. I suppose I looked uncertain, for he went on hastily: "You have heard the 'counting-house' mentioned, or the business, or the cellars, or the wharf, or something about it." "I think I have heard the business mentioned, sir," I said, remembering what I vaguely knew of his and his sister's resources. "But I don't know when." "It does not matter when," he returned. "Mr. Quinion manages that business." I glanced at the latter deferentially as he stood looking out of window. "Mr. Quinion suggests that it gives employment to some other boys, and that he sees no reason why it shouldn't, on the same terms, give employment to you." "He having," Mr. Quinion observed in a low voice, and half turning round, "no other prospect, Murdstone." Mr. Murdstone, with an impatient, even an angry gesture, resumed, without noticing what he had said: "Those terms are, that you will earn enough for yourself to provide for your eating and drinking, and pocket-money. Your lodging (which I have arranged for) will be paid by me. So will your washing--" "--Which will be kept down to my estimate," said his sister. "Your clothes will be looked after for you, too," said Mr. Murdstone; "as you will not be able, yet awhile, to get them for yourself. So you are now going to London, David, with Mr. Quinion, to begin the world on your own account." "In short, you are provided for," observed his sister; "and will please to do your duty." Though I quite understood that the purpose of this announcement was to get rid of me, I have no distinct remembrance whether it pleased or frightened me. My impression is, that I was in a state of confusion about it, and, oscillating between the two points, touched neither. Nor had I much time for the clearing of my thoughts, as Mr. Quinion was to go upon the morrow. Behold me, on the morrow, in a much-worn little white hat, with a black crape round it for my mother, a black jacket, and a pair of hard stiff corduroy trousers--which Miss Murdstone considered the best armour for the legs in that fight with the world which was now to come off: behold me so attired, and with my little worldly all before me in a small trunk, sitting, a lone lorn child (as Mrs. Gummidge might have said), in the postchaise that was carrying Mr. Quinion to the London coach at Yarmouth! See, how our house and church are lessening in the distance; how the grave beneath the tree is blotted out by intervening objects; how the spire points upward from my old playground no more, and the sky is empty! CHAPTER XI. I BEGIN LIFE ON MY OWN ACCOUNT, AND DON'T LIKE IT. I know enough of the world now, to have almost lost the capacity of being much surprised by anything; but it is matter of some surprise to me, even now, that I can have been so easily thrown away at such an age. A child of excellent abilities, and with strong powers of observation, quick, eager, delicate, and soon hurt bodily or mentally, it seems wonderful to me that nobody should have made any sign in my behalf. But none was made; and I became, at ten years old, a little labouring hind in the service of Murdstone and Grinby. Murdstone and Grinby's warehouse was at the water side. It was down in Blackfriars. Modern improvements have altered the place; but it was the last house at the bottom of a narrow street, curving down hill to the river, with some stairs at the end, where people took boat. It was a crazy old house with a wharf of its own, abutting on the water when the tide was in, and on the mud when the tide was out, and literally overrun with rats. Its panelled rooms, discolored with the dirt and smoke of a hundred years, I dare say; its decaying floors and staircase; the squeaking and scuffling of the old grey rats down in the cellars; and the dirt and rottenness of the place; are things, not of many years ago, in my mind, but of the present instant. They are all before me, just as they were in the evil hour when I went among them for the first time, with my trembling hand in Mr. Quinion's. Murdstone and Grinby's trade was among a good many kinds of people, but an important branch of it was the supply of wines and spirits to certain packet ships. I forget now where they chiefly went, but I think there were some among them that made voyages both to the East and West Indies. I know that a great many empty bottles were one of the consequences of this traffic, and that certain men and boys were employed to examine them against the light, and reject those that were flawed, and to rinse and wash them. When the empty bottles ran short, there were labels to be pasted on full ones, or corks to be fitted to them, or seals to be put upon the corks, or finished bottles to be packed in casks. All this work was my work, and of the boys employed upon it I was one. There were three or four of us, counting me. My working place was established in a corner of the warehouse, where Mr. Quinion could see me, when he chose to stand up on the bottom rail of his stool in the counting-house, and look at me through a window above the desk. Hither, on the first morning of my so auspiciously beginning life on my own account, the oldest of the regular boys was summoned to show me my business. His name was Mick Walker, and he wore a ragged apron and a paper cap. He informed me that his father was a bargeman, and walked, in a black velvet head-dress, in the Lord Mayor's Show. He also informed me that our principal associate would be another boy whom he introduced by the--to me--extraordinary name of Mealy Potatoes. I discovered, however, that this youth had not been christened by that name, but that it had been bestowed upon him in the warehouse, on account of his complexion, which was pale or mealy. Mealy's father was a waterman, who had the additional distinction of being a fireman, and was engaged as such at one of the large theatres; where some young relation of Mealy's--I think his little sister--did Imps in the Pantomimes. No words can express the secret agony of my soul as I sunk into this companionship; compared these henceforth every-day associates with those of my happier childhood--not to say with Steerforth, Traddles, and the rest of those boys; and felt my hopes of growing up to be a learned and distinguished man, crushed in my bosom. The deep remembrance of the sense I had, of being utterly without hope now; of the shame I felt in my position; of the misery it was to my young heart to believe that day by day what I had learned, and thought, and delighted in, and raised my fancy and my emulation up by, would pass away from me, little by little, never to be brought back any more; cannot be written. As often as Mick Walker went away in the course of that forenoon, I mingled my tears with the water in which I was washing the bottles; and sobbed as if there were a flaw in my own breast, and it were in danger of bursting. The counting-house clock was at half-past twelve, and there was general preparation for going to dinner, when Mr. Quinion tapped at the counting-house window, and beckoned to me to go in. I went in, and found there a stoutish, middle-aged person, in a brown surtout and black tights and shoes, with no more hair upon his head (which was a large one, and very shining) than there is upon an egg, and with a very extensive face, which he turned full upon me. His clothes were shabby, but he had an imposing shirt-collar on. He carried a jaunty sort of a stick, with a large pair of rusty tassels to it; and a quizzing-glass hung outside his coat,--for ornament, I afterwards found, as he very seldom looked through it, and couldn't see anything when he did. "This," said Mr. Quinion, in allusion to myself, "is he." "This," said the stranger, with a certain condescending roll in his voice, and a certain indescribable air of doing something genteel, which impressed me very much, "is Master Copperfield. I hope I see you well, sir?" I said I was very well, and hoped he was. I was sufficiently ill at ease, Heaven knows; but it was not in my nature to complain much at that time of my life, so I said I was very well, and hoped he was. "I am," said the stranger, "thank Heaven, quite well. I have received a letter from Mr. Murdstone, in which he mentions that he would desire me to receive into an apartment in the rear of my house, which is at present unoccupied--and is, in short, to be let as a--in short," said the stranger, with a smile and in a burst of confidence, "as a bed-room--the young beginner whom I have now the pleasure to--" and the stranger waved his hand, and settled his chin in his shirt collar. "This is Mr. Micawber," said Mr. Quinion to me. "Ahem!" said the stranger, "that is my name." "Mr. Micawber," said Mr. Quinion, "is known to Mr. Murdstone. He takes orders for us on commission, when he can get any. He has been written to by Mr. Murdstone, on the subject of your lodgings, and he will receive you as a lodger." "My address," said Mr. Micawber, "is Windsor Terrace, City Road. I--in short," said Mr. Micawber, with the same genteel air, and in another burst of confidence--"I live there." I made him a bow. "Under the impression," said Mr. Micawber, "that your peregrinations in this metropolis have not as yet been extensive, and that you might have some difficulty in penetrating the arcana of the Modern Babylon in the direction of the City Road--in short," said Mr. Micawber, in another burst of confidence, "that you might lose yourself--I shall be happy to call this evening, and install you in the knowledge of the nearest way." I thanked him with all my heart, for it was friendly in him to offer to take that trouble. "At what hour," said Mr. Micawber, "shall I--" "At about eight," said Mr. Quinion. "At about eight," said Mr. Micawber. "I beg to wish you good day, Mr. Quinion. I will intrude no longer." So he put on his hat, and went out with his cane under his arm: very upright, and humming a tune when he was clear of the counting-house. Mr. Quinion then formally engaged me to be as useful as I could in the warehouse of Murdstone and Grinby, at a salary, I think, of six shillings a week. I am not clear whether it was six or seven. I am inclined to believe, from my uncertainty on this head, that it was six at first and seven afterwards. He paid me a week down (from his own pocket, I believe), and I gave Mealy sixpence out of it to get my trunk carried to Windsor Terrace at night: it being too heavy for my strength, small as it was. I paid sixpence more for my dinner, which was a meat pie and a turn at a neighbouring pump; and passed the hour which was allowed for that meal, in walking about the streets. At the appointed time in the evening, Mr. Micawber reappeared. I washed my hands and face, to do the greater honour to his gentility, and we walked to our house, as I suppose I must now call it, together; Mr. Micawber impressing the names of streets, and the shapes of corner houses upon me, as we went along, that I might find my way back, easily, in the morning. Arrived at his house in Windsor Terrace (which I noticed was shabby like himself, but also, like himself, made all the show it could), he presented me to Mrs. Micawber, a thin and faded lady, not at all young, who was sitting in

since

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with them; you had better do it yourself." But here Peggotty, who had been going about from one to another in a hurried way, kissing everybody, called out from the cart, in which we all were by this time (Em'ly and I on two little chairs, side by side), that Mrs. Gummidge must do it. So Mrs. Gummidge did it; and, I am sorry to relate, cast a damp upon the festive character of our departure, by immediately bursting into tears, and sinking subdued into the arms of Ham, with the declaration that she knowed she was a burden, and had better be carried to the House at once. Which I really thought was a sensible idea, that Ham might have acted on. [Illustration: Mrs. Gummidge casts a damp on our departure.] Away we went, however, on our holiday excursion; and the first thing we did was to stop at a church, where Mr. Barkis tied the horse to some rails, and went in with Peggotty, leaving little Em'ly and me alone in the chaise. I took that occasion to put my arm round Em'ly's waist, and propose that as I was going away so very soon now, we should determine to be very affectionate to one another, and very happy, all day. Little Em'ly consenting, and allowing me to kiss her, I became desperate; informing her, I recollect, that I never could love another, and that I was prepared to shed the blood of anybody who should aspire to her affections. How merry little Em'ly made herself about it! With what a demure assumption of being immensely older and wiser than I, the fairy little woman said I was "a silly boy;" and then laughed so charmingly that I forgot the pain of being called by that disparaging name, in the pleasure of looking at her. Mr. Barkis and Peggotty were a good while in the church, but came out at last, and then we drove away into the country. As we were going along, Mr. Barkis turned to me, and said, with a wink,--by-the-by, I should hardly have thought, before, that he _could_ wink: "What name was it as I wrote up in the cart?" "Clara Peggotty," I answered. "What name would it be as I should write up now, if there was a tilt here?" "Clara Peggotty, again?" I suggested. "Clara Peggotty BARKIS!" he returned, and burst into a roar of laughter that shook the chaise. In a word, they were married, and had gone into the church for no other purpose. Peggotty was resolved that it should be quietly done; and the clerk had given her away, and there had been no witnesses of the ceremony. She was a little confused when Mr. Barkis made this abrupt announcement of their union, and could not hug me enough in token of her unimpaired affection; but she soon became herself again, and said she was very glad it was over. We drove to a little inn in a bye road, where we were expected, and where we had a very comfortable dinner, and passed the day with great satisfaction. If Peggotty had been married every day for the last ten years, she could hardly have been more at her ease about it; it made no sort of difference in her: she was just the same as ever, and went out for a stroll with little Em'ly and me before tea, while Mr. Barkis philosophically smoked his pipe, and enjoyed himself, I suppose, with the contemplation of his happiness. If so, it sharpened his appetite; for I distinctly call to mind that, although he had eaten a good deal of pork and greens at dinner, and had finished off with a fowl or two, he was obliged to have cold boiled bacon for tea, and disposed of a large quantity without any emotion. I have often thought, since, what an odd, innocent, out-of-the-way kind of wedding it must have been! We got into the chaise again soon after dark, and drove cosily back, looking up at the stars, and talking about them. I was their chief exponent, and opened Mr. Barkis's mind to an amazing extent. I told him all I knew, but he would have believed anything I might have taken it into my head to impart to him; for he had a profound veneration for my abilities, and informed his wife in my hearing, on that very occasion, that I was "a young Roeshus"--by which I think he meant, prodigy. When we had exhausted the subject of the stars, or rather when I had exhausted the mental faculties of Mr. Barkis, little Em'ly and I made a cloak of an old wrapper, and sat under it for the rest of the journey. Ah, how I loved her! What happiness (I thought) if we were married, and were going away anywhere to live among the trees and in the fields, never growing older, never growing wiser, children ever, rambling hand in hand through sunshine and among flowery meadows, laying down our heads on moss at night, in a sweet sleep of purity and peace, and buried by the birds when we were dead! Some such picture, with no real world in it, bright with the light of our innocence, and vague as the stars afar off, was in my mind all the way. I am glad to think there were two such guileless hearts at Peggotty's marriage as little Em'ly's and mine. I am glad to think the Loves and Graces took such airy forms in its homely procession. Well, we came to the old boat again in good time at night; and there Mr. and Mrs. Barkis bade us good-bye, and drove away snugly to their own home. I felt then, for the first time, that I had lost Peggotty. I should have gone to bed with a sore heart indeed under any other roof but that which sheltered little Em'ly's head. Mr. Peggotty and Ham knew what was in my thoughts as well as I did, and were ready with some supper and their hospitable faces to drive it away. Little Em'ly came and sat beside me on the locker, for the only time in all that visit; and it was altogether a wonderful close to a wonderful day. It was a night tide; and soon after we went to bed, Mr. Peggotty and Ham went out to fish. I felt very brave at being left alone in the solitary house, the protector of Em'ly and Mrs. Gummidge, and only wished that a lion or a serpent, or any ill-disposed monster, would make an attack upon us, that I might destroy him, and cover myself with glory. But as nothing of the sort happened to be walking about on Yarmouth flats that night, I provided the best substitute I could by dreaming of dragons until morning. With morning came Peggotty; who called to me, as usual, under my window as if Mr. Barkis the carrier had been from first to last a dream too. After breakfast she took me to her own home, and a beautiful little home it was. Of all the moveables in it, I must have been most impressed by a certain old bureau of some dark wood in the parlor (the tile-floored kitchen was the general sitting-room), with a retreating top which opened, let down, and became a desk, within which, was a large quarto edition of Fox's Book of Martyrs. This precious volume, of which I do not recollect one word, I immediately discovered and immediately applied myself to; and I never visited the house afterwards, but I kneeled on a chair, opened the casket where this gem was enshrined, spread my arms over the desk, and fell to devouring the book afresh. I was chiefly edified, I am afraid, by the pictures, which were numerous, and represented all kinds of dismal horrors; but the Martyrs and Peggotty's house have been inseparable in my mind ever since, and are now. I took leave of Mr. Peggotty, and Ham, and Mrs. Gummidge, and little Em'ly, that day; and passed the night at Peggotty's, in a little room in the roof (with the crocodile-book on a shelf by the bed's head) which was to be always mine, Peggotty said, and should always be kept for me in exactly the same state. "Young or old, Davy dear, as long as I am alive and have this house over my head," said Peggotty, "you shall find it as if I expected you here directly minute. I shall keep it every day, as I used to keep your old little room, my darling; and if you was to go to China, you might think of it as being kept just the same, all the time you were away." I felt the truth and constancy of my dear old nurse, with all my heart, and thanked her as well as I could. That was not very well, for she spoke to me thus, with her arms round my neck, in the morning, and I was going home in the morning, and I went home in the morning, with herself and Mr. Barkis in the cart. They left me at the gate, not easily or lightly; and it was a strange sight to me to see the cart go on, taking Peggotty away, and leaving me under the old elm-trees looking at the house, in which there was no face to look on mine with love or liking any more. And now I fell into a state of neglect, which I cannot look back upon without compassion. I fell at once into a solitary condition,--apart from all friendly notice, apart from the society of all other boys of my own age, apart from all companionship but my own spiritless thoughts,--which seems to cast its gloom upon this paper as I write. What would I have given, to have been sent to the hardest school that ever was kept!--to have been taught something, anyhow, anywhere! No such hope dawned upon me. They disliked me; and they sullenly, sternly, steadily, overlooked me. I think Mr. Murdstone's means were straitened at about this time; but it is little to the purpose. He could not bear me; and in putting me from him he tried, as I believe, to put away the notion that I had any claim upon him--and succeeded. I was not actively ill-used. I was not beaten, or starved; but the wrong that was done to me had no intervals of relenting, and was done in a systematic, passionless manner. Day after day, week after week, month after month, I was coldly neglected. I wonder sometimes, when I think of it, what they would have done if I had been taken with an illness; whether I should have lain down in my lonely room, and languished through it in my usual solitary way, or whether anybody would have helped me out. When Mr. and Miss Murdstone were at home, I took my meals with them; in their absence, I ate and drank by myself. At all times I lounged about the house and neighbourhood quite disregarded, except that they were jealous of my making any friends: thinking, perhaps, that, if I did, I might complain to some one. For this reason, though Mr. Chillip often asked me to go and see him (he was a widower, having, some years before that, lost a little small light-haired wife, whom I can just remember connecting in my own thoughts with a pale tortoise-shell cat), it was but seldom that I enjoyed the happiness of passing an afternoon in his closet of a surgery; reading some book that was new to me, with the smell of the whole pharmacopoeia coming up my nose, or pounding something in a mortar under his mild directions. For the same reason, added no doubt to the old dislike of her, I was seldom allowed to visit Peggotty. Faithful to her promise, she either came to see me, or met me somewhere near, once every week, and never empty-handed; but many and bitter were the disappointments I had, in being refused permission to pay a visit to her at her house. Some few times, however, at long intervals, I was allowed to go there; and then I found out that Mr. Barkis was something of a miser, or as Peggotty dutifully expressed it, was "a little near," and kept a heap of money in a box under his bed, which he pretended was only full of coats and trousers. In this coffer, his riches hid themselves with such a tenacious modesty, that the smallest instalments could only be tempted out by artifice; so that Peggotty had to prepare a long and elaborate scheme, a very Gunpowder Plot, for every Saturday's expenses. All this time I was so conscious of the waste of any promise I had given, and of my being utterly neglected, that I should have been perfectly miserable, I have no doubt, but for the old books. They were my only comfort; and I was as true to them as they were to me, and read them over and over I don't know how many times more. I now approach a period of my life, which I can never lose the remembrance of, while I remember any thing; and the recollection of which has often, without my invocation, come before me like a ghost, and haunted happier times. I had been out, one day, loitering somewhere, in the listless, meditative manner that my way of life engendered, when, turning the corner of a lane near our house, I came upon Mr. Murdstone walking with a gentleman. I was confused, and was going by them, when the gentleman cried: "What! Brooks!" "No, sir, David Copperfield," I said. "Don't tell me. You are Brooks," said the gentleman. "You are Brooks of Sheffield. That's your name." At these words, I observed the gentleman more attentively. His laugh coming to my remembrance too, I knew him to be Mr. Quinion, whom I had gone over to Lowestoft with Mr. Murdstone to see, before--it is no matter--I need not recall when. "And how do you get on, and where are you being educated, Brooks?" said Mr. Quinion. He had put his hand upon my shoulder, and turned me about, to walk with them. I did not know what to reply, and glanced dubiously at Mr. Murdstone. "He is at home at present," said the latter. "He is not being educated anywhere. I don't know what to do with him. He is a difficult subject." That old, double look was on me for a moment; and then his eye darkened with a frown, as it turned, in its aversion, elsewhere. "Humph!" said Mr. Quinion, looking at us both, I thought. "Fine weather!" Silence ensued, and I was considering how I could best disengage my shoulder from his hand, and go away, when he said: "I suppose you are a pretty sharp fellow still? Eh, Brooks?" "Aye! He is sharp enough," said Mr. Murdstone, impatiently. "You had better let him go. He will not thank you for troubling him." On this hint, Mr. Quinion released me, and I made the best of my way home. Looking back as I turned into the front garden, I saw Mr. Murdstone leaning against the wicket of the churchyard, and Mr. Quinion talking to him. They were both looking after me, and I felt that they were speaking of me. Mr. Quinion lay at our house that night. After breakfast, the next morning, I had put my chair away, and was going out of the room, when Mr. Murdstone called me back. He then gravely repaired to another table, where his sister sat herself at her desk. Mr. Quinion, with his hands in his pockets, stood looking out of window; and I stood looking at them all. "David," said Mr. Murdstone, "to the young this is a world for action; not for moping and droning in." --"As you do," added his sister. "Jane Murdstone, leave it to me, if you please. I say, David, to the young this is a world for action, and not for moping and droning in. It is especially so for a young boy of your disposition, which requires a great deal of correcting; and to which no greater service can be done than to force it to conform to the ways of the working world, and to bend it and break it." "For stubbornness won't do here," said his sister. "What it wants, is, to be crushed. And crushed it must be. Shall be, too!" He gave her a look, half in remonstrance, half in approval, and went on: "I suppose you know, David, that I am not rich. At any rate, you know it now. You have received some considerable education already. Education is costly; and even if it were not, and I could afford it, I am of opinion that it would not be at all advantageous to you to be kept at a school. What is before you, is a fight with the world; and the sooner you begin it, the better." I think it occurred to me that I had already begun it, in my poor way: but it occurs to me now, whether or no. "You have heard 'the counting-house' mentioned sometimes," said Mr. Murdstone. "The counting-house, sir?" I repeated. "Of Murdstone and Grinby, in the wine trade," he replied. I suppose I looked uncertain, for he went on hastily: "You have heard the 'counting-house' mentioned, or the business, or the cellars, or the wharf, or something about it." "I think I have heard the business mentioned, sir," I said, remembering what I vaguely knew of his and his sister's resources. "But I don't know when." "It does not matter when," he returned. "Mr. Quinion manages that business." I glanced at the latter deferentially as he stood looking out of window. "Mr. Quinion suggests that it gives employment to some other boys, and that he sees no reason why it shouldn't, on the same terms, give employment to you." "He having," Mr. Quinion observed in a low voice, and half turning round, "no other prospect, Murdstone." Mr. Murdstone, with an impatient, even an angry gesture, resumed, without noticing what he had said: "Those terms are, that you will earn enough for yourself to provide for your eating and drinking, and pocket-money. Your lodging (which I have arranged for) will be paid by me. So will your washing--" "--Which will be kept down to my estimate," said his sister. "Your clothes will be looked after for you, too," said Mr. Murdstone; "as you will not be able, yet awhile, to get them for yourself. So you are now going to London, David, with Mr. Quinion, to begin the world on your own account." "In short, you are provided for," observed his sister; "and will please to do your duty." Though I quite understood that the purpose of this announcement was to get rid of me, I have no distinct remembrance whether it pleased or frightened me. My impression is, that I was in a state of confusion about it, and, oscillating between the two points, touched neither. Nor had I much time for the clearing of my thoughts, as Mr. Quinion was to go upon the morrow. Behold me, on the morrow, in a much-worn little white hat, with a black crape round it for my mother, a black jacket, and a pair of hard stiff corduroy trousers--which Miss Murdstone considered the best armour for the legs in that fight with the world which was now to come off: behold me so attired, and with my little worldly all before me in a small trunk, sitting, a lone lorn child (as Mrs. Gummidge might have said), in the postchaise that was carrying Mr. Quinion to the London coach at Yarmouth! See, how our house and church are lessening in the distance; how the grave beneath the tree is blotted out by intervening objects; how the spire points upward from my old playground no more, and the sky is empty! CHAPTER XI. I BEGIN LIFE ON MY OWN ACCOUNT, AND DON'T LIKE IT. I know enough of the world now, to have almost lost the capacity of being much surprised by anything; but it is matter of some surprise to me, even now, that I can have been so easily thrown away at such an age. A child of excellent abilities, and with strong powers of observation, quick, eager, delicate, and soon hurt bodily or mentally, it seems wonderful to me that nobody should have made any sign in my behalf. But none was made; and I became, at ten years old, a little labouring hind in the service of Murdstone and Grinby. Murdstone and Grinby's warehouse was at the water side. It was down in Blackfriars. Modern improvements have altered the place; but it was the last house at the bottom of a narrow street, curving down hill to the river, with some stairs at the end, where people took boat. It was a crazy old house with a wharf of its own, abutting on the water when the tide was in, and on the mud when the tide was out, and literally overrun with rats. Its panelled rooms, discolored with the dirt and smoke of a hundred years, I dare say; its decaying floors and staircase; the squeaking and scuffling of the old grey rats down in the cellars; and the dirt and rottenness of the place; are things, not of many years ago, in my mind, but of the present instant. They are all before me, just as they were in the evil hour when I went among them for the first time, with my trembling hand in Mr. Quinion's. Murdstone and Grinby's trade was among a good many kinds of people, but an important branch of it was the supply of wines and spirits to certain packet ships. I forget now where they chiefly went, but I think there were some among them that made voyages both to the East and West Indies. I know that a great many empty bottles were one of the consequences of this traffic, and that certain men and boys were employed to examine them against the light, and reject those that were flawed, and to rinse and wash them. When the empty bottles ran short, there were labels to be pasted on full ones, or corks to be fitted to them, or seals to be put upon the corks, or finished bottles to be packed in casks. All this work was my work, and of the boys employed upon it I was one. There were three or four of us, counting me. My working place was established in a corner of the warehouse, where Mr. Quinion could see me, when he chose to stand up on the bottom rail of his stool in the counting-house, and look at me through a window above the desk. Hither, on the first morning of my so auspiciously beginning life on my own account, the oldest of the regular boys was summoned to show me my business. His name was Mick Walker, and he wore a ragged apron and a paper cap. He informed me that his father was a bargeman, and walked, in a black velvet head-dress, in the Lord Mayor's Show. He also informed me that our principal associate would be another boy whom he introduced by the--to me--extraordinary name of Mealy Potatoes. I discovered, however, that this youth had not been christened by that name, but that it had been bestowed upon him in the warehouse, on account of his complexion, which was pale or mealy. Mealy's father was a waterman, who had the additional distinction of being a fireman, and was engaged as such at one of the large theatres; where some young relation of Mealy's--I think his little sister--did Imps in the Pantomimes. No words can express the secret agony of my soul as I sunk into this companionship; compared these henceforth every-day associates with those of my happier childhood--not to say with Steerforth, Traddles, and the rest of those boys; and felt my hopes of growing up to be a learned and distinguished man, crushed in my bosom. The deep remembrance of the sense I had, of being utterly without hope now; of the shame I felt in my position; of the misery it was to my young heart to believe that day by day what I had learned, and thought, and delighted in, and raised my fancy and my emulation up by, would pass away from me, little by little, never to be brought back any more; cannot be written. As often as Mick Walker went away in the course of that forenoon, I mingled my tears with the water in which I was washing the bottles; and sobbed as if there were a flaw in my own breast, and it were in danger of bursting. The counting-house clock was at half-past twelve, and there was general preparation for going to dinner, when Mr. Quinion tapped at the counting-house window, and beckoned to me to go in. I went in, and found there a stoutish, middle-aged person, in a brown surtout and black tights and shoes, with no more hair upon his head (which was a large one, and very shining) than there is upon an egg, and with a very extensive face, which he turned full upon me. His clothes were shabby, but he had an imposing shirt-collar on. He carried a jaunty sort of a stick, with a large pair of rusty tassels to it; and a quizzing-glass hung outside his coat,--for ornament, I afterwards found, as he very seldom looked through it, and couldn't see anything when he did. "This," said Mr. Quinion, in allusion to myself, "is he." "This," said the stranger, with a certain condescending roll in his voice, and a certain indescribable air of doing something genteel, which impressed me very much, "is Master Copperfield. I hope I see you well, sir?" I said I was very well, and hoped he was. I was sufficiently ill at ease, Heaven knows; but it was not in my nature to complain much at that time of my life, so I said I was very well, and hoped he was. "I am," said the stranger, "thank Heaven, quite well. I have received a letter from Mr. Murdstone, in which he mentions that he would desire me to receive into an apartment in the rear of my house, which is at present unoccupied--and is, in short, to be let as a--in short," said the stranger, with a smile and in a burst of confidence, "as a bed-room--the young beginner whom I have now the pleasure to--" and the stranger waved his hand, and settled his chin in his shirt collar. "This is Mr. Micawber," said Mr. Quinion to me. "Ahem!" said the stranger, "that is my name." "Mr. Micawber," said Mr. Quinion, "is known to Mr. Murdstone. He takes orders for us on commission, when he can get any. He has been written to by Mr. Murdstone, on the subject of your lodgings, and he will receive you as a lodger." "My address," said Mr. Micawber, "is Windsor Terrace, City Road. I--in short," said Mr. Micawber, with the same genteel air, and in another burst of confidence--"I live there." I made him a bow. "Under the impression," said Mr. Micawber, "that your peregrinations in this metropolis have not as yet been extensive, and that you might have some difficulty in penetrating the arcana of the Modern Babylon in the direction of the City Road--in short," said Mr. Micawber, in another burst of confidence, "that you might lose yourself--I shall be happy to call this evening, and install you in the knowledge of the nearest way." I thanked him with all my heart, for it was friendly in him to offer to take that trouble. "At what hour," said Mr. Micawber, "shall I--" "At about eight," said Mr. Quinion. "At about eight," said Mr. Micawber. "I beg to wish you good day, Mr. Quinion. I will intrude no longer." So he put on his hat, and went out with his cane under his arm: very upright, and humming a tune when he was clear of the counting-house. Mr. Quinion then formally engaged me to be as useful as I could in the warehouse of Murdstone and Grinby, at a salary, I think, of six shillings a week. I am not clear whether it was six or seven. I am inclined to believe, from my uncertainty on this head, that it was six at first and seven afterwards. He paid me a week down (from his own pocket, I believe), and I gave Mealy sixpence out of it to get my trunk carried to Windsor Terrace at night: it being too heavy for my strength, small as it was. I paid sixpence more for my dinner, which was a meat pie and a turn at a neighbouring pump; and passed the hour which was allowed for that meal, in walking about the streets. At the appointed time in the evening, Mr. Micawber reappeared. I washed my hands and face, to do the greater honour to his gentility, and we walked to our house, as I suppose I must now call it, together; Mr. Micawber impressing the names of streets, and the shapes of corner houses upon me, as we went along, that I might find my way back, easily, in the morning. Arrived at his house in Windsor Terrace (which I noticed was shabby like himself, but also, like himself, made all the show it could), he presented me to Mrs. Micawber, a thin and faded lady, not at all young, who was sitting in

disposed

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

with them; you had better do it yourself." But here Peggotty, who had been going about from one to another in a hurried way, kissing everybody, called out from the cart, in which we all were by this time (Em'ly and I on two little chairs, side by side), that Mrs. Gummidge must do it. So Mrs. Gummidge did it; and, I am sorry to relate, cast a damp upon the festive character of our departure, by immediately bursting into tears, and sinking subdued into the arms of Ham, with the declaration that she knowed she was a burden, and had better be carried to the House at once. Which I really thought was a sensible idea, that Ham might have acted on. [Illustration: Mrs. Gummidge casts a damp on our departure.] Away we went, however, on our holiday excursion; and the first thing we did was to stop at a church, where Mr. Barkis tied the horse to some rails, and went in with Peggotty, leaving little Em'ly and me alone in the chaise. I took that occasion to put my arm round Em'ly's waist, and propose that as I was going away so very soon now, we should determine to be very affectionate to one another, and very happy, all day. Little Em'ly consenting, and allowing me to kiss her, I became desperate; informing her, I recollect, that I never could love another, and that I was prepared to shed the blood of anybody who should aspire to her affections. How merry little Em'ly made herself about it! With what a demure assumption of being immensely older and wiser than I, the fairy little woman said I was "a silly boy;" and then laughed so charmingly that I forgot the pain of being called by that disparaging name, in the pleasure of looking at her. Mr. Barkis and Peggotty were a good while in the church, but came out at last, and then we drove away into the country. As we were going along, Mr. Barkis turned to me, and said, with a wink,--by-the-by, I should hardly have thought, before, that he _could_ wink: "What name was it as I wrote up in the cart?" "Clara Peggotty," I answered. "What name would it be as I should write up now, if there was a tilt here?" "Clara Peggotty, again?" I suggested. "Clara Peggotty BARKIS!" he returned, and burst into a roar of laughter that shook the chaise. In a word, they were married, and had gone into the church for no other purpose. Peggotty was resolved that it should be quietly done; and the clerk had given her away, and there had been no witnesses of the ceremony. She was a little confused when Mr. Barkis made this abrupt announcement of their union, and could not hug me enough in token of her unimpaired affection; but she soon became herself again, and said she was very glad it was over. We drove to a little inn in a bye road, where we were expected, and where we had a very comfortable dinner, and passed the day with great satisfaction. If Peggotty had been married every day for the last ten years, she could hardly have been more at her ease about it; it made no sort of difference in her: she was just the same as ever, and went out for a stroll with little Em'ly and me before tea, while Mr. Barkis philosophically smoked his pipe, and enjoyed himself, I suppose, with the contemplation of his happiness. If so, it sharpened his appetite; for I distinctly call to mind that, although he had eaten a good deal of pork and greens at dinner, and had finished off with a fowl or two, he was obliged to have cold boiled bacon for tea, and disposed of a large quantity without any emotion. I have often thought, since, what an odd, innocent, out-of-the-way kind of wedding it must have been! We got into the chaise again soon after dark, and drove cosily back, looking up at the stars, and talking about them. I was their chief exponent, and opened Mr. Barkis's mind to an amazing extent. I told him all I knew, but he would have believed anything I might have taken it into my head to impart to him; for he had a profound veneration for my abilities, and informed his wife in my hearing, on that very occasion, that I was "a young Roeshus"--by which I think he meant, prodigy. When we had exhausted the subject of the stars, or rather when I had exhausted the mental faculties of Mr. Barkis, little Em'ly and I made a cloak of an old wrapper, and sat under it for the rest of the journey. Ah, how I loved her! What happiness (I thought) if we were married, and were going away anywhere to live among the trees and in the fields, never growing older, never growing wiser, children ever, rambling hand in hand through sunshine and among flowery meadows, laying down our heads on moss at night, in a sweet sleep of purity and peace, and buried by the birds when we were dead! Some such picture, with no real world in it, bright with the light of our innocence, and vague as the stars afar off, was in my mind all the way. I am glad to think there were two such guileless hearts at Peggotty's marriage as little Em'ly's and mine. I am glad to think the Loves and Graces took such airy forms in its homely procession. Well, we came to the old boat again in good time at night; and there Mr. and Mrs. Barkis bade us good-bye, and drove away snugly to their own home. I felt then, for the first time, that I had lost Peggotty. I should have gone to bed with a sore heart indeed under any other roof but that which sheltered little Em'ly's head. Mr. Peggotty and Ham knew what was in my thoughts as well as I did, and were ready with some supper and their hospitable faces to drive it away. Little Em'ly came and sat beside me on the locker, for the only time in all that visit; and it was altogether a wonderful close to a wonderful day. It was a night tide; and soon after we went to bed, Mr. Peggotty and Ham went out to fish. I felt very brave at being left alone in the solitary house, the protector of Em'ly and Mrs. Gummidge, and only wished that a lion or a serpent, or any ill-disposed monster, would make an attack upon us, that I might destroy him, and cover myself with glory. But as nothing of the sort happened to be walking about on Yarmouth flats that night, I provided the best substitute I could by dreaming of dragons until morning. With morning came Peggotty; who called to me, as usual, under my window as if Mr. Barkis the carrier had been from first to last a dream too. After breakfast she took me to her own home, and a beautiful little home it was. Of all the moveables in it, I must have been most impressed by a certain old bureau of some dark wood in the parlor (the tile-floored kitchen was the general sitting-room), with a retreating top which opened, let down, and became a desk, within which, was a large quarto edition of Fox's Book of Martyrs. This precious volume, of which I do not recollect one word, I immediately discovered and immediately applied myself to; and I never visited the house afterwards, but I kneeled on a chair, opened the casket where this gem was enshrined, spread my arms over the desk, and fell to devouring the book afresh. I was chiefly edified, I am afraid, by the pictures, which were numerous, and represented all kinds of dismal horrors; but the Martyrs and Peggotty's house have been inseparable in my mind ever since, and are now. I took leave of Mr. Peggotty, and Ham, and Mrs. Gummidge, and little Em'ly, that day; and passed the night at Peggotty's, in a little room in the roof (with the crocodile-book on a shelf by the bed's head) which was to be always mine, Peggotty said, and should always be kept for me in exactly the same state. "Young or old, Davy dear, as long as I am alive and have this house over my head," said Peggotty, "you shall find it as if I expected you here directly minute. I shall keep it every day, as I used to keep your old little room, my darling; and if you was to go to China, you might think of it as being kept just the same, all the time you were away." I felt the truth and constancy of my dear old nurse, with all my heart, and thanked her as well as I could. That was not very well, for she spoke to me thus, with her arms round my neck, in the morning, and I was going home in the morning, and I went home in the morning, with herself and Mr. Barkis in the cart. They left me at the gate, not easily or lightly; and it was a strange sight to me to see the cart go on, taking Peggotty away, and leaving me under the old elm-trees looking at the house, in which there was no face to look on mine with love or liking any more. And now I fell into a state of neglect, which I cannot look back upon without compassion. I fell at once into a solitary condition,--apart from all friendly notice, apart from the society of all other boys of my own age, apart from all companionship but my own spiritless thoughts,--which seems to cast its gloom upon this paper as I write. What would I have given, to have been sent to the hardest school that ever was kept!--to have been taught something, anyhow, anywhere! No such hope dawned upon me. They disliked me; and they sullenly, sternly, steadily, overlooked me. I think Mr. Murdstone's means were straitened at about this time; but it is little to the purpose. He could not bear me; and in putting me from him he tried, as I believe, to put away the notion that I had any claim upon him--and succeeded. I was not actively ill-used. I was not beaten, or starved; but the wrong that was done to me had no intervals of relenting, and was done in a systematic, passionless manner. Day after day, week after week, month after month, I was coldly neglected. I wonder sometimes, when I think of it, what they would have done if I had been taken with an illness; whether I should have lain down in my lonely room, and languished through it in my usual solitary way, or whether anybody would have helped me out. When Mr. and Miss Murdstone were at home, I took my meals with them; in their absence, I ate and drank by myself. At all times I lounged about the house and neighbourhood quite disregarded, except that they were jealous of my making any friends: thinking, perhaps, that, if I did, I might complain to some one. For this reason, though Mr. Chillip often asked me to go and see him (he was a widower, having, some years before that, lost a little small light-haired wife, whom I can just remember connecting in my own thoughts with a pale tortoise-shell cat), it was but seldom that I enjoyed the happiness of passing an afternoon in his closet of a surgery; reading some book that was new to me, with the smell of the whole pharmacopoeia coming up my nose, or pounding something in a mortar under his mild directions. For the same reason, added no doubt to the old dislike of her, I was seldom allowed to visit Peggotty. Faithful to her promise, she either came to see me, or met me somewhere near, once every week, and never empty-handed; but many and bitter were the disappointments I had, in being refused permission to pay a visit to her at her house. Some few times, however, at long intervals, I was allowed to go there; and then I found out that Mr. Barkis was something of a miser, or as Peggotty dutifully expressed it, was "a little near," and kept a heap of money in a box under his bed, which he pretended was only full of coats and trousers. In this coffer, his riches hid themselves with such a tenacious modesty, that the smallest instalments could only be tempted out by artifice; so that Peggotty had to prepare a long and elaborate scheme, a very Gunpowder Plot, for every Saturday's expenses. All this time I was so conscious of the waste of any promise I had given, and of my being utterly neglected, that I should have been perfectly miserable, I have no doubt, but for the old books. They were my only comfort; and I was as true to them as they were to me, and read them over and over I don't know how many times more. I now approach a period of my life, which I can never lose the remembrance of, while I remember any thing; and the recollection of which has often, without my invocation, come before me like a ghost, and haunted happier times. I had been out, one day, loitering somewhere, in the listless, meditative manner that my way of life engendered, when, turning the corner of a lane near our house, I came upon Mr. Murdstone walking with a gentleman. I was confused, and was going by them, when the gentleman cried: "What! Brooks!" "No, sir, David Copperfield," I said. "Don't tell me. You are Brooks," said the gentleman. "You are Brooks of Sheffield. That's your name." At these words, I observed the gentleman more attentively. His laugh coming to my remembrance too, I knew him to be Mr. Quinion, whom I had gone over to Lowestoft with Mr. Murdstone to see, before--it is no matter--I need not recall when. "And how do you get on, and where are you being educated, Brooks?" said Mr. Quinion. He had put his hand upon my shoulder, and turned me about, to walk with them. I did not know what to reply, and glanced dubiously at Mr. Murdstone. "He is at home at present," said the latter. "He is not being educated anywhere. I don't know what to do with him. He is a difficult subject." That old, double look was on me for a moment; and then his eye darkened with a frown, as it turned, in its aversion, elsewhere. "Humph!" said Mr. Quinion, looking at us both, I thought. "Fine weather!" Silence ensued, and I was considering how I could best disengage my shoulder from his hand, and go away, when he said: "I suppose you are a pretty sharp fellow still? Eh, Brooks?" "Aye! He is sharp enough," said Mr. Murdstone, impatiently. "You had better let him go. He will not thank you for troubling him." On this hint, Mr. Quinion released me, and I made the best of my way home. Looking back as I turned into the front garden, I saw Mr. Murdstone leaning against the wicket of the churchyard, and Mr. Quinion talking to him. They were both looking after me, and I felt that they were speaking of me. Mr. Quinion lay at our house that night. After breakfast, the next morning, I had put my chair away, and was going out of the room, when Mr. Murdstone called me back. He then gravely repaired to another table, where his sister sat herself at her desk. Mr. Quinion, with his hands in his pockets, stood looking out of window; and I stood looking at them all. "David," said Mr. Murdstone, "to the young this is a world for action; not for moping and droning in." --"As you do," added his sister. "Jane Murdstone, leave it to me, if you please. I say, David, to the young this is a world for action, and not for moping and droning in. It is especially so for a young boy of your disposition, which requires a great deal of correcting; and to which no greater service can be done than to force it to conform to the ways of the working world, and to bend it and break it." "For stubbornness won't do here," said his sister. "What it wants, is, to be crushed. And crushed it must be. Shall be, too!" He gave her a look, half in remonstrance, half in approval, and went on: "I suppose you know, David, that I am not rich. At any rate, you know it now. You have received some considerable education already. Education is costly; and even if it were not, and I could afford it, I am of opinion that it would not be at all advantageous to you to be kept at a school. What is before you, is a fight with the world; and the sooner you begin it, the better." I think it occurred to me that I had already begun it, in my poor way: but it occurs to me now, whether or no. "You have heard 'the counting-house' mentioned sometimes," said Mr. Murdstone. "The counting-house, sir?" I repeated. "Of Murdstone and Grinby, in the wine trade," he replied. I suppose I looked uncertain, for he went on hastily: "You have heard the 'counting-house' mentioned, or the business, or the cellars, or the wharf, or something about it." "I think I have heard the business mentioned, sir," I said, remembering what I vaguely knew of his and his sister's resources. "But I don't know when." "It does not matter when," he returned. "Mr. Quinion manages that business." I glanced at the latter deferentially as he stood looking out of window. "Mr. Quinion suggests that it gives employment to some other boys, and that he sees no reason why it shouldn't, on the same terms, give employment to you." "He having," Mr. Quinion observed in a low voice, and half turning round, "no other prospect, Murdstone." Mr. Murdstone, with an impatient, even an angry gesture, resumed, without noticing what he had said: "Those terms are, that you will earn enough for yourself to provide for your eating and drinking, and pocket-money. Your lodging (which I have arranged for) will be paid by me. So will your washing--" "--Which will be kept down to my estimate," said his sister. "Your clothes will be looked after for you, too," said Mr. Murdstone; "as you will not be able, yet awhile, to get them for yourself. So you are now going to London, David, with Mr. Quinion, to begin the world on your own account." "In short, you are provided for," observed his sister; "and will please to do your duty." Though I quite understood that the purpose of this announcement was to get rid of me, I have no distinct remembrance whether it pleased or frightened me. My impression is, that I was in a state of confusion about it, and, oscillating between the two points, touched neither. Nor had I much time for the clearing of my thoughts, as Mr. Quinion was to go upon the morrow. Behold me, on the morrow, in a much-worn little white hat, with a black crape round it for my mother, a black jacket, and a pair of hard stiff corduroy trousers--which Miss Murdstone considered the best armour for the legs in that fight with the world which was now to come off: behold me so attired, and with my little worldly all before me in a small trunk, sitting, a lone lorn child (as Mrs. Gummidge might have said), in the postchaise that was carrying Mr. Quinion to the London coach at Yarmouth! See, how our house and church are lessening in the distance; how the grave beneath the tree is blotted out by intervening objects; how the spire points upward from my old playground no more, and the sky is empty! CHAPTER XI. I BEGIN LIFE ON MY OWN ACCOUNT, AND DON'T LIKE IT. I know enough of the world now, to have almost lost the capacity of being much surprised by anything; but it is matter of some surprise to me, even now, that I can have been so easily thrown away at such an age. A child of excellent abilities, and with strong powers of observation, quick, eager, delicate, and soon hurt bodily or mentally, it seems wonderful to me that nobody should have made any sign in my behalf. But none was made; and I became, at ten years old, a little labouring hind in the service of Murdstone and Grinby. Murdstone and Grinby's warehouse was at the water side. It was down in Blackfriars. Modern improvements have altered the place; but it was the last house at the bottom of a narrow street, curving down hill to the river, with some stairs at the end, where people took boat. It was a crazy old house with a wharf of its own, abutting on the water when the tide was in, and on the mud when the tide was out, and literally overrun with rats. Its panelled rooms, discolored with the dirt and smoke of a hundred years, I dare say; its decaying floors and staircase; the squeaking and scuffling of the old grey rats down in the cellars; and the dirt and rottenness of the place; are things, not of many years ago, in my mind, but of the present instant. They are all before me, just as they were in the evil hour when I went among them for the first time, with my trembling hand in Mr. Quinion's. Murdstone and Grinby's trade was among a good many kinds of people, but an important branch of it was the supply of wines and spirits to certain packet ships. I forget now where they chiefly went, but I think there were some among them that made voyages both to the East and West Indies. I know that a great many empty bottles were one of the consequences of this traffic, and that certain men and boys were employed to examine them against the light, and reject those that were flawed, and to rinse and wash them. When the empty bottles ran short, there were labels to be pasted on full ones, or corks to be fitted to them, or seals to be put upon the corks, or finished bottles to be packed in casks. All this work was my work, and of the boys employed upon it I was one. There were three or four of us, counting me. My working place was established in a corner of the warehouse, where Mr. Quinion could see me, when he chose to stand up on the bottom rail of his stool in the counting-house, and look at me through a window above the desk. Hither, on the first morning of my so auspiciously beginning life on my own account, the oldest of the regular boys was summoned to show me my business. His name was Mick Walker, and he wore a ragged apron and a paper cap. He informed me that his father was a bargeman, and walked, in a black velvet head-dress, in the Lord Mayor's Show. He also informed me that our principal associate would be another boy whom he introduced by the--to me--extraordinary name of Mealy Potatoes. I discovered, however, that this youth had not been christened by that name, but that it had been bestowed upon him in the warehouse, on account of his complexion, which was pale or mealy. Mealy's father was a waterman, who had the additional distinction of being a fireman, and was engaged as such at one of the large theatres; where some young relation of Mealy's--I think his little sister--did Imps in the Pantomimes. No words can express the secret agony of my soul as I sunk into this companionship; compared these henceforth every-day associates with those of my happier childhood--not to say with Steerforth, Traddles, and the rest of those boys; and felt my hopes of growing up to be a learned and distinguished man, crushed in my bosom. The deep remembrance of the sense I had, of being utterly without hope now; of the shame I felt in my position; of the misery it was to my young heart to believe that day by day what I had learned, and thought, and delighted in, and raised my fancy and my emulation up by, would pass away from me, little by little, never to be brought back any more; cannot be written. As often as Mick Walker went away in the course of that forenoon, I mingled my tears with the water in which I was washing the bottles; and sobbed as if there were a flaw in my own breast, and it were in danger of bursting. The counting-house clock was at half-past twelve, and there was general preparation for going to dinner, when Mr. Quinion tapped at the counting-house window, and beckoned to me to go in. I went in, and found there a stoutish, middle-aged person, in a brown surtout and black tights and shoes, with no more hair upon his head (which was a large one, and very shining) than there is upon an egg, and with a very extensive face, which he turned full upon me. His clothes were shabby, but he had an imposing shirt-collar on. He carried a jaunty sort of a stick, with a large pair of rusty tassels to it; and a quizzing-glass hung outside his coat,--for ornament, I afterwards found, as he very seldom looked through it, and couldn't see anything when he did. "This," said Mr. Quinion, in allusion to myself, "is he." "This," said the stranger, with a certain condescending roll in his voice, and a certain indescribable air of doing something genteel, which impressed me very much, "is Master Copperfield. I hope I see you well, sir?" I said I was very well, and hoped he was. I was sufficiently ill at ease, Heaven knows; but it was not in my nature to complain much at that time of my life, so I said I was very well, and hoped he was. "I am," said the stranger, "thank Heaven, quite well. I have received a letter from Mr. Murdstone, in which he mentions that he would desire me to receive into an apartment in the rear of my house, which is at present unoccupied--and is, in short, to be let as a--in short," said the stranger, with a smile and in a burst of confidence, "as a bed-room--the young beginner whom I have now the pleasure to--" and the stranger waved his hand, and settled his chin in his shirt collar. "This is Mr. Micawber," said Mr. Quinion to me. "Ahem!" said the stranger, "that is my name." "Mr. Micawber," said Mr. Quinion, "is known to Mr. Murdstone. He takes orders for us on commission, when he can get any. He has been written to by Mr. Murdstone, on the subject of your lodgings, and he will receive you as a lodger." "My address," said Mr. Micawber, "is Windsor Terrace, City Road. I--in short," said Mr. Micawber, with the same genteel air, and in another burst of confidence--"I live there." I made him a bow. "Under the impression," said Mr. Micawber, "that your peregrinations in this metropolis have not as yet been extensive, and that you might have some difficulty in penetrating the arcana of the Modern Babylon in the direction of the City Road--in short," said Mr. Micawber, in another burst of confidence, "that you might lose yourself--I shall be happy to call this evening, and install you in the knowledge of the nearest way." I thanked him with all my heart, for it was friendly in him to offer to take that trouble. "At what hour," said Mr. Micawber, "shall I--" "At about eight," said Mr. Quinion. "At about eight," said Mr. Micawber. "I beg to wish you good day, Mr. Quinion. I will intrude no longer." So he put on his hat, and went out with his cane under his arm: very upright, and humming a tune when he was clear of the counting-house. Mr. Quinion then formally engaged me to be as useful as I could in the warehouse of Murdstone and Grinby, at a salary, I think, of six shillings a week. I am not clear whether it was six or seven. I am inclined to believe, from my uncertainty on this head, that it was six at first and seven afterwards. He paid me a week down (from his own pocket, I believe), and I gave Mealy sixpence out of it to get my trunk carried to Windsor Terrace at night: it being too heavy for my strength, small as it was. I paid sixpence more for my dinner, which was a meat pie and a turn at a neighbouring pump; and passed the hour which was allowed for that meal, in walking about the streets. At the appointed time in the evening, Mr. Micawber reappeared. I washed my hands and face, to do the greater honour to his gentility, and we walked to our house, as I suppose I must now call it, together; Mr. Micawber impressing the names of streets, and the shapes of corner houses upon me, as we went along, that I might find my way back, easily, in the morning. Arrived at his house in Windsor Terrace (which I noticed was shabby like himself, but also, like himself, made all the show it could), he presented me to Mrs. Micawber, a thin and faded lady, not at all young, who was sitting in

allowing

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

with them; you had better do it yourself." But here Peggotty, who had been going about from one to another in a hurried way, kissing everybody, called out from the cart, in which we all were by this time (Em'ly and I on two little chairs, side by side), that Mrs. Gummidge must do it. So Mrs. Gummidge did it; and, I am sorry to relate, cast a damp upon the festive character of our departure, by immediately bursting into tears, and sinking subdued into the arms of Ham, with the declaration that she knowed she was a burden, and had better be carried to the House at once. Which I really thought was a sensible idea, that Ham might have acted on. [Illustration: Mrs. Gummidge casts a damp on our departure.] Away we went, however, on our holiday excursion; and the first thing we did was to stop at a church, where Mr. Barkis tied the horse to some rails, and went in with Peggotty, leaving little Em'ly and me alone in the chaise. I took that occasion to put my arm round Em'ly's waist, and propose that as I was going away so very soon now, we should determine to be very affectionate to one another, and very happy, all day. Little Em'ly consenting, and allowing me to kiss her, I became desperate; informing her, I recollect, that I never could love another, and that I was prepared to shed the blood of anybody who should aspire to her affections. How merry little Em'ly made herself about it! With what a demure assumption of being immensely older and wiser than I, the fairy little woman said I was "a silly boy;" and then laughed so charmingly that I forgot the pain of being called by that disparaging name, in the pleasure of looking at her. Mr. Barkis and Peggotty were a good while in the church, but came out at last, and then we drove away into the country. As we were going along, Mr. Barkis turned to me, and said, with a wink,--by-the-by, I should hardly have thought, before, that he _could_ wink: "What name was it as I wrote up in the cart?" "Clara Peggotty," I answered. "What name would it be as I should write up now, if there was a tilt here?" "Clara Peggotty, again?" I suggested. "Clara Peggotty BARKIS!" he returned, and burst into a roar of laughter that shook the chaise. In a word, they were married, and had gone into the church for no other purpose. Peggotty was resolved that it should be quietly done; and the clerk had given her away, and there had been no witnesses of the ceremony. She was a little confused when Mr. Barkis made this abrupt announcement of their union, and could not hug me enough in token of her unimpaired affection; but she soon became herself again, and said she was very glad it was over. We drove to a little inn in a bye road, where we were expected, and where we had a very comfortable dinner, and passed the day with great satisfaction. If Peggotty had been married every day for the last ten years, she could hardly have been more at her ease about it; it made no sort of difference in her: she was just the same as ever, and went out for a stroll with little Em'ly and me before tea, while Mr. Barkis philosophically smoked his pipe, and enjoyed himself, I suppose, with the contemplation of his happiness. If so, it sharpened his appetite; for I distinctly call to mind that, although he had eaten a good deal of pork and greens at dinner, and had finished off with a fowl or two, he was obliged to have cold boiled bacon for tea, and disposed of a large quantity without any emotion. I have often thought, since, what an odd, innocent, out-of-the-way kind of wedding it must have been! We got into the chaise again soon after dark, and drove cosily back, looking up at the stars, and talking about them. I was their chief exponent, and opened Mr. Barkis's mind to an amazing extent. I told him all I knew, but he would have believed anything I might have taken it into my head to impart to him; for he had a profound veneration for my abilities, and informed his wife in my hearing, on that very occasion, that I was "a young Roeshus"--by which I think he meant, prodigy. When we had exhausted the subject of the stars, or rather when I had exhausted the mental faculties of Mr. Barkis, little Em'ly and I made a cloak of an old wrapper, and sat under it for the rest of the journey. Ah, how I loved her! What happiness (I thought) if we were married, and were going away anywhere to live among the trees and in the fields, never growing older, never growing wiser, children ever, rambling hand in hand through sunshine and among flowery meadows, laying down our heads on moss at night, in a sweet sleep of purity and peace, and buried by the birds when we were dead! Some such picture, with no real world in it, bright with the light of our innocence, and vague as the stars afar off, was in my mind all the way. I am glad to think there were two such guileless hearts at Peggotty's marriage as little Em'ly's and mine. I am glad to think the Loves and Graces took such airy forms in its homely procession. Well, we came to the old boat again in good time at night; and there Mr. and Mrs. Barkis bade us good-bye, and drove away snugly to their own home. I felt then, for the first time, that I had lost Peggotty. I should have gone to bed with a sore heart indeed under any other roof but that which sheltered little Em'ly's head. Mr. Peggotty and Ham knew what was in my thoughts as well as I did, and were ready with some supper and their hospitable faces to drive it away. Little Em'ly came and sat beside me on the locker, for the only time in all that visit; and it was altogether a wonderful close to a wonderful day. It was a night tide; and soon after we went to bed, Mr. Peggotty and Ham went out to fish. I felt very brave at being left alone in the solitary house, the protector of Em'ly and Mrs. Gummidge, and only wished that a lion or a serpent, or any ill-disposed monster, would make an attack upon us, that I might destroy him, and cover myself with glory. But as nothing of the sort happened to be walking about on Yarmouth flats that night, I provided the best substitute I could by dreaming of dragons until morning. With morning came Peggotty; who called to me, as usual, under my window as if Mr. Barkis the carrier had been from first to last a dream too. After breakfast she took me to her own home, and a beautiful little home it was. Of all the moveables in it, I must have been most impressed by a certain old bureau of some dark wood in the parlor (the tile-floored kitchen was the general sitting-room), with a retreating top which opened, let down, and became a desk, within which, was a large quarto edition of Fox's Book of Martyrs. This precious volume, of which I do not recollect one word, I immediately discovered and immediately applied myself to; and I never visited the house afterwards, but I kneeled on a chair, opened the casket where this gem was enshrined, spread my arms over the desk, and fell to devouring the book afresh. I was chiefly edified, I am afraid, by the pictures, which were numerous, and represented all kinds of dismal horrors; but the Martyrs and Peggotty's house have been inseparable in my mind ever since, and are now. I took leave of Mr. Peggotty, and Ham, and Mrs. Gummidge, and little Em'ly, that day; and passed the night at Peggotty's, in a little room in the roof (with the crocodile-book on a shelf by the bed's head) which was to be always mine, Peggotty said, and should always be kept for me in exactly the same state. "Young or old, Davy dear, as long as I am alive and have this house over my head," said Peggotty, "you shall find it as if I expected you here directly minute. I shall keep it every day, as I used to keep your old little room, my darling; and if you was to go to China, you might think of it as being kept just the same, all the time you were away." I felt the truth and constancy of my dear old nurse, with all my heart, and thanked her as well as I could. That was not very well, for she spoke to me thus, with her arms round my neck, in the morning, and I was going home in the morning, and I went home in the morning, with herself and Mr. Barkis in the cart. They left me at the gate, not easily or lightly; and it was a strange sight to me to see the cart go on, taking Peggotty away, and leaving me under the old elm-trees looking at the house, in which there was no face to look on mine with love or liking any more. And now I fell into a state of neglect, which I cannot look back upon without compassion. I fell at once into a solitary condition,--apart from all friendly notice, apart from the society of all other boys of my own age, apart from all companionship but my own spiritless thoughts,--which seems to cast its gloom upon this paper as I write. What would I have given, to have been sent to the hardest school that ever was kept!--to have been taught something, anyhow, anywhere! No such hope dawned upon me. They disliked me; and they sullenly, sternly, steadily, overlooked me. I think Mr. Murdstone's means were straitened at about this time; but it is little to the purpose. He could not bear me; and in putting me from him he tried, as I believe, to put away the notion that I had any claim upon him--and succeeded. I was not actively ill-used. I was not beaten, or starved; but the wrong that was done to me had no intervals of relenting, and was done in a systematic, passionless manner. Day after day, week after week, month after month, I was coldly neglected. I wonder sometimes, when I think of it, what they would have done if I had been taken with an illness; whether I should have lain down in my lonely room, and languished through it in my usual solitary way, or whether anybody would have helped me out. When Mr. and Miss Murdstone were at home, I took my meals with them; in their absence, I ate and drank by myself. At all times I lounged about the house and neighbourhood quite disregarded, except that they were jealous of my making any friends: thinking, perhaps, that, if I did, I might complain to some one. For this reason, though Mr. Chillip often asked me to go and see him (he was a widower, having, some years before that, lost a little small light-haired wife, whom I can just remember connecting in my own thoughts with a pale tortoise-shell cat), it was but seldom that I enjoyed the happiness of passing an afternoon in his closet of a surgery; reading some book that was new to me, with the smell of the whole pharmacopoeia coming up my nose, or pounding something in a mortar under his mild directions. For the same reason, added no doubt to the old dislike of her, I was seldom allowed to visit Peggotty. Faithful to her promise, she either came to see me, or met me somewhere near, once every week, and never empty-handed; but many and bitter were the disappointments I had, in being refused permission to pay a visit to her at her house. Some few times, however, at long intervals, I was allowed to go there; and then I found out that Mr. Barkis was something of a miser, or as Peggotty dutifully expressed it, was "a little near," and kept a heap of money in a box under his bed, which he pretended was only full of coats and trousers. In this coffer, his riches hid themselves with such a tenacious modesty, that the smallest instalments could only be tempted out by artifice; so that Peggotty had to prepare a long and elaborate scheme, a very Gunpowder Plot, for every Saturday's expenses. All this time I was so conscious of the waste of any promise I had given, and of my being utterly neglected, that I should have been perfectly miserable, I have no doubt, but for the old books. They were my only comfort; and I was as true to them as they were to me, and read them over and over I don't know how many times more. I now approach a period of my life, which I can never lose the remembrance of, while I remember any thing; and the recollection of which has often, without my invocation, come before me like a ghost, and haunted happier times. I had been out, one day, loitering somewhere, in the listless, meditative manner that my way of life engendered, when, turning the corner of a lane near our house, I came upon Mr. Murdstone walking with a gentleman. I was confused, and was going by them, when the gentleman cried: "What! Brooks!" "No, sir, David Copperfield," I said. "Don't tell me. You are Brooks," said the gentleman. "You are Brooks of Sheffield. That's your name." At these words, I observed the gentleman more attentively. His laugh coming to my remembrance too, I knew him to be Mr. Quinion, whom I had gone over to Lowestoft with Mr. Murdstone to see, before--it is no matter--I need not recall when. "And how do you get on, and where are you being educated, Brooks?" said Mr. Quinion. He had put his hand upon my shoulder, and turned me about, to walk with them. I did not know what to reply, and glanced dubiously at Mr. Murdstone. "He is at home at present," said the latter. "He is not being educated anywhere. I don't know what to do with him. He is a difficult subject." That old, double look was on me for a moment; and then his eye darkened with a frown, as it turned, in its aversion, elsewhere. "Humph!" said Mr. Quinion, looking at us both, I thought. "Fine weather!" Silence ensued, and I was considering how I could best disengage my shoulder from his hand, and go away, when he said: "I suppose you are a pretty sharp fellow still? Eh, Brooks?" "Aye! He is sharp enough," said Mr. Murdstone, impatiently. "You had better let him go. He will not thank you for troubling him." On this hint, Mr. Quinion released me, and I made the best of my way home. Looking back as I turned into the front garden, I saw Mr. Murdstone leaning against the wicket of the churchyard, and Mr. Quinion talking to him. They were both looking after me, and I felt that they were speaking of me. Mr. Quinion lay at our house that night. After breakfast, the next morning, I had put my chair away, and was going out of the room, when Mr. Murdstone called me back. He then gravely repaired to another table, where his sister sat herself at her desk. Mr. Quinion, with his hands in his pockets, stood looking out of window; and I stood looking at them all. "David," said Mr. Murdstone, "to the young this is a world for action; not for moping and droning in." --"As you do," added his sister. "Jane Murdstone, leave it to me, if you please. I say, David, to the young this is a world for action, and not for moping and droning in. It is especially so for a young boy of your disposition, which requires a great deal of correcting; and to which no greater service can be done than to force it to conform to the ways of the working world, and to bend it and break it." "For stubbornness won't do here," said his sister. "What it wants, is, to be crushed. And crushed it must be. Shall be, too!" He gave her a look, half in remonstrance, half in approval, and went on: "I suppose you know, David, that I am not rich. At any rate, you know it now. You have received some considerable education already. Education is costly; and even if it were not, and I could afford it, I am of opinion that it would not be at all advantageous to you to be kept at a school. What is before you, is a fight with the world; and the sooner you begin it, the better." I think it occurred to me that I had already begun it, in my poor way: but it occurs to me now, whether or no. "You have heard 'the counting-house' mentioned sometimes," said Mr. Murdstone. "The counting-house, sir?" I repeated. "Of Murdstone and Grinby, in the wine trade," he replied. I suppose I looked uncertain, for he went on hastily: "You have heard the 'counting-house' mentioned, or the business, or the cellars, or the wharf, or something about it." "I think I have heard the business mentioned, sir," I said, remembering what I vaguely knew of his and his sister's resources. "But I don't know when." "It does not matter when," he returned. "Mr. Quinion manages that business." I glanced at the latter deferentially as he stood looking out of window. "Mr. Quinion suggests that it gives employment to some other boys, and that he sees no reason why it shouldn't, on the same terms, give employment to you." "He having," Mr. Quinion observed in a low voice, and half turning round, "no other prospect, Murdstone." Mr. Murdstone, with an impatient, even an angry gesture, resumed, without noticing what he had said: "Those terms are, that you will earn enough for yourself to provide for your eating and drinking, and pocket-money. Your lodging (which I have arranged for) will be paid by me. So will your washing--" "--Which will be kept down to my estimate," said his sister. "Your clothes will be looked after for you, too," said Mr. Murdstone; "as you will not be able, yet awhile, to get them for yourself. So you are now going to London, David, with Mr. Quinion, to begin the world on your own account." "In short, you are provided for," observed his sister; "and will please to do your duty." Though I quite understood that the purpose of this announcement was to get rid of me, I have no distinct remembrance whether it pleased or frightened me. My impression is, that I was in a state of confusion about it, and, oscillating between the two points, touched neither. Nor had I much time for the clearing of my thoughts, as Mr. Quinion was to go upon the morrow. Behold me, on the morrow, in a much-worn little white hat, with a black crape round it for my mother, a black jacket, and a pair of hard stiff corduroy trousers--which Miss Murdstone considered the best armour for the legs in that fight with the world which was now to come off: behold me so attired, and with my little worldly all before me in a small trunk, sitting, a lone lorn child (as Mrs. Gummidge might have said), in the postchaise that was carrying Mr. Quinion to the London coach at Yarmouth! See, how our house and church are lessening in the distance; how the grave beneath the tree is blotted out by intervening objects; how the spire points upward from my old playground no more, and the sky is empty! CHAPTER XI. I BEGIN LIFE ON MY OWN ACCOUNT, AND DON'T LIKE IT. I know enough of the world now, to have almost lost the capacity of being much surprised by anything; but it is matter of some surprise to me, even now, that I can have been so easily thrown away at such an age. A child of excellent abilities, and with strong powers of observation, quick, eager, delicate, and soon hurt bodily or mentally, it seems wonderful to me that nobody should have made any sign in my behalf. But none was made; and I became, at ten years old, a little labouring hind in the service of Murdstone and Grinby. Murdstone and Grinby's warehouse was at the water side. It was down in Blackfriars. Modern improvements have altered the place; but it was the last house at the bottom of a narrow street, curving down hill to the river, with some stairs at the end, where people took boat. It was a crazy old house with a wharf of its own, abutting on the water when the tide was in, and on the mud when the tide was out, and literally overrun with rats. Its panelled rooms, discolored with the dirt and smoke of a hundred years, I dare say; its decaying floors and staircase; the squeaking and scuffling of the old grey rats down in the cellars; and the dirt and rottenness of the place; are things, not of many years ago, in my mind, but of the present instant. They are all before me, just as they were in the evil hour when I went among them for the first time, with my trembling hand in Mr. Quinion's. Murdstone and Grinby's trade was among a good many kinds of people, but an important branch of it was the supply of wines and spirits to certain packet ships. I forget now where they chiefly went, but I think there were some among them that made voyages both to the East and West Indies. I know that a great many empty bottles were one of the consequences of this traffic, and that certain men and boys were employed to examine them against the light, and reject those that were flawed, and to rinse and wash them. When the empty bottles ran short, there were labels to be pasted on full ones, or corks to be fitted to them, or seals to be put upon the corks, or finished bottles to be packed in casks. All this work was my work, and of the boys employed upon it I was one. There were three or four of us, counting me. My working place was established in a corner of the warehouse, where Mr. Quinion could see me, when he chose to stand up on the bottom rail of his stool in the counting-house, and look at me through a window above the desk. Hither, on the first morning of my so auspiciously beginning life on my own account, the oldest of the regular boys was summoned to show me my business. His name was Mick Walker, and he wore a ragged apron and a paper cap. He informed me that his father was a bargeman, and walked, in a black velvet head-dress, in the Lord Mayor's Show. He also informed me that our principal associate would be another boy whom he introduced by the--to me--extraordinary name of Mealy Potatoes. I discovered, however, that this youth had not been christened by that name, but that it had been bestowed upon him in the warehouse, on account of his complexion, which was pale or mealy. Mealy's father was a waterman, who had the additional distinction of being a fireman, and was engaged as such at one of the large theatres; where some young relation of Mealy's--I think his little sister--did Imps in the Pantomimes. No words can express the secret agony of my soul as I sunk into this companionship; compared these henceforth every-day associates with those of my happier childhood--not to say with Steerforth, Traddles, and the rest of those boys; and felt my hopes of growing up to be a learned and distinguished man, crushed in my bosom. The deep remembrance of the sense I had, of being utterly without hope now; of the shame I felt in my position; of the misery it was to my young heart to believe that day by day what I had learned, and thought, and delighted in, and raised my fancy and my emulation up by, would pass away from me, little by little, never to be brought back any more; cannot be written. As often as Mick Walker went away in the course of that forenoon, I mingled my tears with the water in which I was washing the bottles; and sobbed as if there were a flaw in my own breast, and it were in danger of bursting. The counting-house clock was at half-past twelve, and there was general preparation for going to dinner, when Mr. Quinion tapped at the counting-house window, and beckoned to me to go in. I went in, and found there a stoutish, middle-aged person, in a brown surtout and black tights and shoes, with no more hair upon his head (which was a large one, and very shining) than there is upon an egg, and with a very extensive face, which he turned full upon me. His clothes were shabby, but he had an imposing shirt-collar on. He carried a jaunty sort of a stick, with a large pair of rusty tassels to it; and a quizzing-glass hung outside his coat,--for ornament, I afterwards found, as he very seldom looked through it, and couldn't see anything when he did. "This," said Mr. Quinion, in allusion to myself, "is he." "This," said the stranger, with a certain condescending roll in his voice, and a certain indescribable air of doing something genteel, which impressed me very much, "is Master Copperfield. I hope I see you well, sir?" I said I was very well, and hoped he was. I was sufficiently ill at ease, Heaven knows; but it was not in my nature to complain much at that time of my life, so I said I was very well, and hoped he was. "I am," said the stranger, "thank Heaven, quite well. I have received a letter from Mr. Murdstone, in which he mentions that he would desire me to receive into an apartment in the rear of my house, which is at present unoccupied--and is, in short, to be let as a--in short," said the stranger, with a smile and in a burst of confidence, "as a bed-room--the young beginner whom I have now the pleasure to--" and the stranger waved his hand, and settled his chin in his shirt collar. "This is Mr. Micawber," said Mr. Quinion to me. "Ahem!" said the stranger, "that is my name." "Mr. Micawber," said Mr. Quinion, "is known to Mr. Murdstone. He takes orders for us on commission, when he can get any. He has been written to by Mr. Murdstone, on the subject of your lodgings, and he will receive you as a lodger." "My address," said Mr. Micawber, "is Windsor Terrace, City Road. I--in short," said Mr. Micawber, with the same genteel air, and in another burst of confidence--"I live there." I made him a bow. "Under the impression," said Mr. Micawber, "that your peregrinations in this metropolis have not as yet been extensive, and that you might have some difficulty in penetrating the arcana of the Modern Babylon in the direction of the City Road--in short," said Mr. Micawber, in another burst of confidence, "that you might lose yourself--I shall be happy to call this evening, and install you in the knowledge of the nearest way." I thanked him with all my heart, for it was friendly in him to offer to take that trouble. "At what hour," said Mr. Micawber, "shall I--" "At about eight," said Mr. Quinion. "At about eight," said Mr. Micawber. "I beg to wish you good day, Mr. Quinion. I will intrude no longer." So he put on his hat, and went out with his cane under his arm: very upright, and humming a tune when he was clear of the counting-house. Mr. Quinion then formally engaged me to be as useful as I could in the warehouse of Murdstone and Grinby, at a salary, I think, of six shillings a week. I am not clear whether it was six or seven. I am inclined to believe, from my uncertainty on this head, that it was six at first and seven afterwards. He paid me a week down (from his own pocket, I believe), and I gave Mealy sixpence out of it to get my trunk carried to Windsor Terrace at night: it being too heavy for my strength, small as it was. I paid sixpence more for my dinner, which was a meat pie and a turn at a neighbouring pump; and passed the hour which was allowed for that meal, in walking about the streets. At the appointed time in the evening, Mr. Micawber reappeared. I washed my hands and face, to do the greater honour to his gentility, and we walked to our house, as I suppose I must now call it, together; Mr. Micawber impressing the names of streets, and the shapes of corner houses upon me, as we went along, that I might find my way back, easily, in the morning. Arrived at his house in Windsor Terrace (which I noticed was shabby like himself, but also, like himself, made all the show it could), he presented me to Mrs. Micawber, a thin and faded lady, not at all young, who was sitting in

make

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

with them; you had better do it yourself." But here Peggotty, who had been going about from one to another in a hurried way, kissing everybody, called out from the cart, in which we all were by this time (Em'ly and I on two little chairs, side by side), that Mrs. Gummidge must do it. So Mrs. Gummidge did it; and, I am sorry to relate, cast a damp upon the festive character of our departure, by immediately bursting into tears, and sinking subdued into the arms of Ham, with the declaration that she knowed she was a burden, and had better be carried to the House at once. Which I really thought was a sensible idea, that Ham might have acted on. [Illustration: Mrs. Gummidge casts a damp on our departure.] Away we went, however, on our holiday excursion; and the first thing we did was to stop at a church, where Mr. Barkis tied the horse to some rails, and went in with Peggotty, leaving little Em'ly and me alone in the chaise. I took that occasion to put my arm round Em'ly's waist, and propose that as I was going away so very soon now, we should determine to be very affectionate to one another, and very happy, all day. Little Em'ly consenting, and allowing me to kiss her, I became desperate; informing her, I recollect, that I never could love another, and that I was prepared to shed the blood of anybody who should aspire to her affections. How merry little Em'ly made herself about it! With what a demure assumption of being immensely older and wiser than I, the fairy little woman said I was "a silly boy;" and then laughed so charmingly that I forgot the pain of being called by that disparaging name, in the pleasure of looking at her. Mr. Barkis and Peggotty were a good while in the church, but came out at last, and then we drove away into the country. As we were going along, Mr. Barkis turned to me, and said, with a wink,--by-the-by, I should hardly have thought, before, that he _could_ wink: "What name was it as I wrote up in the cart?" "Clara Peggotty," I answered. "What name would it be as I should write up now, if there was a tilt here?" "Clara Peggotty, again?" I suggested. "Clara Peggotty BARKIS!" he returned, and burst into a roar of laughter that shook the chaise. In a word, they were married, and had gone into the church for no other purpose. Peggotty was resolved that it should be quietly done; and the clerk had given her away, and there had been no witnesses of the ceremony. She was a little confused when Mr. Barkis made this abrupt announcement of their union, and could not hug me enough in token of her unimpaired affection; but she soon became herself again, and said she was very glad it was over. We drove to a little inn in a bye road, where we were expected, and where we had a very comfortable dinner, and passed the day with great satisfaction. If Peggotty had been married every day for the last ten years, she could hardly have been more at her ease about it; it made no sort of difference in her: she was just the same as ever, and went out for a stroll with little Em'ly and me before tea, while Mr. Barkis philosophically smoked his pipe, and enjoyed himself, I suppose, with the contemplation of his happiness. If so, it sharpened his appetite; for I distinctly call to mind that, although he had eaten a good deal of pork and greens at dinner, and had finished off with a fowl or two, he was obliged to have cold boiled bacon for tea, and disposed of a large quantity without any emotion. I have often thought, since, what an odd, innocent, out-of-the-way kind of wedding it must have been! We got into the chaise again soon after dark, and drove cosily back, looking up at the stars, and talking about them. I was their chief exponent, and opened Mr. Barkis's mind to an amazing extent. I told him all I knew, but he would have believed anything I might have taken it into my head to impart to him; for he had a profound veneration for my abilities, and informed his wife in my hearing, on that very occasion, that I was "a young Roeshus"--by which I think he meant, prodigy. When we had exhausted the subject of the stars, or rather when I had exhausted the mental faculties of Mr. Barkis, little Em'ly and I made a cloak of an old wrapper, and sat under it for the rest of the journey. Ah, how I loved her! What happiness (I thought) if we were married, and were going away anywhere to live among the trees and in the fields, never growing older, never growing wiser, children ever, rambling hand in hand through sunshine and among flowery meadows, laying down our heads on moss at night, in a sweet sleep of purity and peace, and buried by the birds when we were dead! Some such picture, with no real world in it, bright with the light of our innocence, and vague as the stars afar off, was in my mind all the way. I am glad to think there were two such guileless hearts at Peggotty's marriage as little Em'ly's and mine. I am glad to think the Loves and Graces took such airy forms in its homely procession. Well, we came to the old boat again in good time at night; and there Mr. and Mrs. Barkis bade us good-bye, and drove away snugly to their own home. I felt then, for the first time, that I had lost Peggotty. I should have gone to bed with a sore heart indeed under any other roof but that which sheltered little Em'ly's head. Mr. Peggotty and Ham knew what was in my thoughts as well as I did, and were ready with some supper and their hospitable faces to drive it away. Little Em'ly came and sat beside me on the locker, for the only time in all that visit; and it was altogether a wonderful close to a wonderful day. It was a night tide; and soon after we went to bed, Mr. Peggotty and Ham went out to fish. I felt very brave at being left alone in the solitary house, the protector of Em'ly and Mrs. Gummidge, and only wished that a lion or a serpent, or any ill-disposed monster, would make an attack upon us, that I might destroy him, and cover myself with glory. But as nothing of the sort happened to be walking about on Yarmouth flats that night, I provided the best substitute I could by dreaming of dragons until morning. With morning came Peggotty; who called to me, as usual, under my window as if Mr. Barkis the carrier had been from first to last a dream too. After breakfast she took me to her own home, and a beautiful little home it was. Of all the moveables in it, I must have been most impressed by a certain old bureau of some dark wood in the parlor (the tile-floored kitchen was the general sitting-room), with a retreating top which opened, let down, and became a desk, within which, was a large quarto edition of Fox's Book of Martyrs. This precious volume, of which I do not recollect one word, I immediately discovered and immediately applied myself to; and I never visited the house afterwards, but I kneeled on a chair, opened the casket where this gem was enshrined, spread my arms over the desk, and fell to devouring the book afresh. I was chiefly edified, I am afraid, by the pictures, which were numerous, and represented all kinds of dismal horrors; but the Martyrs and Peggotty's house have been inseparable in my mind ever since, and are now. I took leave of Mr. Peggotty, and Ham, and Mrs. Gummidge, and little Em'ly, that day; and passed the night at Peggotty's, in a little room in the roof (with the crocodile-book on a shelf by the bed's head) which was to be always mine, Peggotty said, and should always be kept for me in exactly the same state. "Young or old, Davy dear, as long as I am alive and have this house over my head," said Peggotty, "you shall find it as if I expected you here directly minute. I shall keep it every day, as I used to keep your old little room, my darling; and if you was to go to China, you might think of it as being kept just the same, all the time you were away." I felt the truth and constancy of my dear old nurse, with all my heart, and thanked her as well as I could. That was not very well, for she spoke to me thus, with her arms round my neck, in the morning, and I was going home in the morning, and I went home in the morning, with herself and Mr. Barkis in the cart. They left me at the gate, not easily or lightly; and it was a strange sight to me to see the cart go on, taking Peggotty away, and leaving me under the old elm-trees looking at the house, in which there was no face to look on mine with love or liking any more. And now I fell into a state of neglect, which I cannot look back upon without compassion. I fell at once into a solitary condition,--apart from all friendly notice, apart from the society of all other boys of my own age, apart from all companionship but my own spiritless thoughts,--which seems to cast its gloom upon this paper as I write. What would I have given, to have been sent to the hardest school that ever was kept!--to have been taught something, anyhow, anywhere! No such hope dawned upon me. They disliked me; and they sullenly, sternly, steadily, overlooked me. I think Mr. Murdstone's means were straitened at about this time; but it is little to the purpose. He could not bear me; and in putting me from him he tried, as I believe, to put away the notion that I had any claim upon him--and succeeded. I was not actively ill-used. I was not beaten, or starved; but the wrong that was done to me had no intervals of relenting, and was done in a systematic, passionless manner. Day after day, week after week, month after month, I was coldly neglected. I wonder sometimes, when I think of it, what they would have done if I had been taken with an illness; whether I should have lain down in my lonely room, and languished through it in my usual solitary way, or whether anybody would have helped me out. When Mr. and Miss Murdstone were at home, I took my meals with them; in their absence, I ate and drank by myself. At all times I lounged about the house and neighbourhood quite disregarded, except that they were jealous of my making any friends: thinking, perhaps, that, if I did, I might complain to some one. For this reason, though Mr. Chillip often asked me to go and see him (he was a widower, having, some years before that, lost a little small light-haired wife, whom I can just remember connecting in my own thoughts with a pale tortoise-shell cat), it was but seldom that I enjoyed the happiness of passing an afternoon in his closet of a surgery; reading some book that was new to me, with the smell of the whole pharmacopoeia coming up my nose, or pounding something in a mortar under his mild directions. For the same reason, added no doubt to the old dislike of her, I was seldom allowed to visit Peggotty. Faithful to her promise, she either came to see me, or met me somewhere near, once every week, and never empty-handed; but many and bitter were the disappointments I had, in being refused permission to pay a visit to her at her house. Some few times, however, at long intervals, I was allowed to go there; and then I found out that Mr. Barkis was something of a miser, or as Peggotty dutifully expressed it, was "a little near," and kept a heap of money in a box under his bed, which he pretended was only full of coats and trousers. In this coffer, his riches hid themselves with such a tenacious modesty, that the smallest instalments could only be tempted out by artifice; so that Peggotty had to prepare a long and elaborate scheme, a very Gunpowder Plot, for every Saturday's expenses. All this time I was so conscious of the waste of any promise I had given, and of my being utterly neglected, that I should have been perfectly miserable, I have no doubt, but for the old books. They were my only comfort; and I was as true to them as they were to me, and read them over and over I don't know how many times more. I now approach a period of my life, which I can never lose the remembrance of, while I remember any thing; and the recollection of which has often, without my invocation, come before me like a ghost, and haunted happier times. I had been out, one day, loitering somewhere, in the listless, meditative manner that my way of life engendered, when, turning the corner of a lane near our house, I came upon Mr. Murdstone walking with a gentleman. I was confused, and was going by them, when the gentleman cried: "What! Brooks!" "No, sir, David Copperfield," I said. "Don't tell me. You are Brooks," said the gentleman. "You are Brooks of Sheffield. That's your name." At these words, I observed the gentleman more attentively. His laugh coming to my remembrance too, I knew him to be Mr. Quinion, whom I had gone over to Lowestoft with Mr. Murdstone to see, before--it is no matter--I need not recall when. "And how do you get on, and where are you being educated, Brooks?" said Mr. Quinion. He had put his hand upon my shoulder, and turned me about, to walk with them. I did not know what to reply, and glanced dubiously at Mr. Murdstone. "He is at home at present," said the latter. "He is not being educated anywhere. I don't know what to do with him. He is a difficult subject." That old, double look was on me for a moment; and then his eye darkened with a frown, as it turned, in its aversion, elsewhere. "Humph!" said Mr. Quinion, looking at us both, I thought. "Fine weather!" Silence ensued, and I was considering how I could best disengage my shoulder from his hand, and go away, when he said: "I suppose you are a pretty sharp fellow still? Eh, Brooks?" "Aye! He is sharp enough," said Mr. Murdstone, impatiently. "You had better let him go. He will not thank you for troubling him." On this hint, Mr. Quinion released me, and I made the best of my way home. Looking back as I turned into the front garden, I saw Mr. Murdstone leaning against the wicket of the churchyard, and Mr. Quinion talking to him. They were both looking after me, and I felt that they were speaking of me. Mr. Quinion lay at our house that night. After breakfast, the next morning, I had put my chair away, and was going out of the room, when Mr. Murdstone called me back. He then gravely repaired to another table, where his sister sat herself at her desk. Mr. Quinion, with his hands in his pockets, stood looking out of window; and I stood looking at them all. "David," said Mr. Murdstone, "to the young this is a world for action; not for moping and droning in." --"As you do," added his sister. "Jane Murdstone, leave it to me, if you please. I say, David, to the young this is a world for action, and not for moping and droning in. It is especially so for a young boy of your disposition, which requires a great deal of correcting; and to which no greater service can be done than to force it to conform to the ways of the working world, and to bend it and break it." "For stubbornness won't do here," said his sister. "What it wants, is, to be crushed. And crushed it must be. Shall be, too!" He gave her a look, half in remonstrance, half in approval, and went on: "I suppose you know, David, that I am not rich. At any rate, you know it now. You have received some considerable education already. Education is costly; and even if it were not, and I could afford it, I am of opinion that it would not be at all advantageous to you to be kept at a school. What is before you, is a fight with the world; and the sooner you begin it, the better." I think it occurred to me that I had already begun it, in my poor way: but it occurs to me now, whether or no. "You have heard 'the counting-house' mentioned sometimes," said Mr. Murdstone. "The counting-house, sir?" I repeated. "Of Murdstone and Grinby, in the wine trade," he replied. I suppose I looked uncertain, for he went on hastily: "You have heard the 'counting-house' mentioned, or the business, or the cellars, or the wharf, or something about it." "I think I have heard the business mentioned, sir," I said, remembering what I vaguely knew of his and his sister's resources. "But I don't know when." "It does not matter when," he returned. "Mr. Quinion manages that business." I glanced at the latter deferentially as he stood looking out of window. "Mr. Quinion suggests that it gives employment to some other boys, and that he sees no reason why it shouldn't, on the same terms, give employment to you." "He having," Mr. Quinion observed in a low voice, and half turning round, "no other prospect, Murdstone." Mr. Murdstone, with an impatient, even an angry gesture, resumed, without noticing what he had said: "Those terms are, that you will earn enough for yourself to provide for your eating and drinking, and pocket-money. Your lodging (which I have arranged for) will be paid by me. So will your washing--" "--Which will be kept down to my estimate," said his sister. "Your clothes will be looked after for you, too," said Mr. Murdstone; "as you will not be able, yet awhile, to get them for yourself. So you are now going to London, David, with Mr. Quinion, to begin the world on your own account." "In short, you are provided for," observed his sister; "and will please to do your duty." Though I quite understood that the purpose of this announcement was to get rid of me, I have no distinct remembrance whether it pleased or frightened me. My impression is, that I was in a state of confusion about it, and, oscillating between the two points, touched neither. Nor had I much time for the clearing of my thoughts, as Mr. Quinion was to go upon the morrow. Behold me, on the morrow, in a much-worn little white hat, with a black crape round it for my mother, a black jacket, and a pair of hard stiff corduroy trousers--which Miss Murdstone considered the best armour for the legs in that fight with the world which was now to come off: behold me so attired, and with my little worldly all before me in a small trunk, sitting, a lone lorn child (as Mrs. Gummidge might have said), in the postchaise that was carrying Mr. Quinion to the London coach at Yarmouth! See, how our house and church are lessening in the distance; how the grave beneath the tree is blotted out by intervening objects; how the spire points upward from my old playground no more, and the sky is empty! CHAPTER XI. I BEGIN LIFE ON MY OWN ACCOUNT, AND DON'T LIKE IT. I know enough of the world now, to have almost lost the capacity of being much surprised by anything; but it is matter of some surprise to me, even now, that I can have been so easily thrown away at such an age. A child of excellent abilities, and with strong powers of observation, quick, eager, delicate, and soon hurt bodily or mentally, it seems wonderful to me that nobody should have made any sign in my behalf. But none was made; and I became, at ten years old, a little labouring hind in the service of Murdstone and Grinby. Murdstone and Grinby's warehouse was at the water side. It was down in Blackfriars. Modern improvements have altered the place; but it was the last house at the bottom of a narrow street, curving down hill to the river, with some stairs at the end, where people took boat. It was a crazy old house with a wharf of its own, abutting on the water when the tide was in, and on the mud when the tide was out, and literally overrun with rats. Its panelled rooms, discolored with the dirt and smoke of a hundred years, I dare say; its decaying floors and staircase; the squeaking and scuffling of the old grey rats down in the cellars; and the dirt and rottenness of the place; are things, not of many years ago, in my mind, but of the present instant. They are all before me, just as they were in the evil hour when I went among them for the first time, with my trembling hand in Mr. Quinion's. Murdstone and Grinby's trade was among a good many kinds of people, but an important branch of it was the supply of wines and spirits to certain packet ships. I forget now where they chiefly went, but I think there were some among them that made voyages both to the East and West Indies. I know that a great many empty bottles were one of the consequences of this traffic, and that certain men and boys were employed to examine them against the light, and reject those that were flawed, and to rinse and wash them. When the empty bottles ran short, there were labels to be pasted on full ones, or corks to be fitted to them, or seals to be put upon the corks, or finished bottles to be packed in casks. All this work was my work, and of the boys employed upon it I was one. There were three or four of us, counting me. My working place was established in a corner of the warehouse, where Mr. Quinion could see me, when he chose to stand up on the bottom rail of his stool in the counting-house, and look at me through a window above the desk. Hither, on the first morning of my so auspiciously beginning life on my own account, the oldest of the regular boys was summoned to show me my business. His name was Mick Walker, and he wore a ragged apron and a paper cap. He informed me that his father was a bargeman, and walked, in a black velvet head-dress, in the Lord Mayor's Show. He also informed me that our principal associate would be another boy whom he introduced by the--to me--extraordinary name of Mealy Potatoes. I discovered, however, that this youth had not been christened by that name, but that it had been bestowed upon him in the warehouse, on account of his complexion, which was pale or mealy. Mealy's father was a waterman, who had the additional distinction of being a fireman, and was engaged as such at one of the large theatres; where some young relation of Mealy's--I think his little sister--did Imps in the Pantomimes. No words can express the secret agony of my soul as I sunk into this companionship; compared these henceforth every-day associates with those of my happier childhood--not to say with Steerforth, Traddles, and the rest of those boys; and felt my hopes of growing up to be a learned and distinguished man, crushed in my bosom. The deep remembrance of the sense I had, of being utterly without hope now; of the shame I felt in my position; of the misery it was to my young heart to believe that day by day what I had learned, and thought, and delighted in, and raised my fancy and my emulation up by, would pass away from me, little by little, never to be brought back any more; cannot be written. As often as Mick Walker went away in the course of that forenoon, I mingled my tears with the water in which I was washing the bottles; and sobbed as if there were a flaw in my own breast, and it were in danger of bursting. The counting-house clock was at half-past twelve, and there was general preparation for going to dinner, when Mr. Quinion tapped at the counting-house window, and beckoned to me to go in. I went in, and found there a stoutish, middle-aged person, in a brown surtout and black tights and shoes, with no more hair upon his head (which was a large one, and very shining) than there is upon an egg, and with a very extensive face, which he turned full upon me. His clothes were shabby, but he had an imposing shirt-collar on. He carried a jaunty sort of a stick, with a large pair of rusty tassels to it; and a quizzing-glass hung outside his coat,--for ornament, I afterwards found, as he very seldom looked through it, and couldn't see anything when he did. "This," said Mr. Quinion, in allusion to myself, "is he." "This," said the stranger, with a certain condescending roll in his voice, and a certain indescribable air of doing something genteel, which impressed me very much, "is Master Copperfield. I hope I see you well, sir?" I said I was very well, and hoped he was. I was sufficiently ill at ease, Heaven knows; but it was not in my nature to complain much at that time of my life, so I said I was very well, and hoped he was. "I am," said the stranger, "thank Heaven, quite well. I have received a letter from Mr. Murdstone, in which he mentions that he would desire me to receive into an apartment in the rear of my house, which is at present unoccupied--and is, in short, to be let as a--in short," said the stranger, with a smile and in a burst of confidence, "as a bed-room--the young beginner whom I have now the pleasure to--" and the stranger waved his hand, and settled his chin in his shirt collar. "This is Mr. Micawber," said Mr. Quinion to me. "Ahem!" said the stranger, "that is my name." "Mr. Micawber," said Mr. Quinion, "is known to Mr. Murdstone. He takes orders for us on commission, when he can get any. He has been written to by Mr. Murdstone, on the subject of your lodgings, and he will receive you as a lodger." "My address," said Mr. Micawber, "is Windsor Terrace, City Road. I--in short," said Mr. Micawber, with the same genteel air, and in another burst of confidence--"I live there." I made him a bow. "Under the impression," said Mr. Micawber, "that your peregrinations in this metropolis have not as yet been extensive, and that you might have some difficulty in penetrating the arcana of the Modern Babylon in the direction of the City Road--in short," said Mr. Micawber, in another burst of confidence, "that you might lose yourself--I shall be happy to call this evening, and install you in the knowledge of the nearest way." I thanked him with all my heart, for it was friendly in him to offer to take that trouble. "At what hour," said Mr. Micawber, "shall I--" "At about eight," said Mr. Quinion. "At about eight," said Mr. Micawber. "I beg to wish you good day, Mr. Quinion. I will intrude no longer." So he put on his hat, and went out with his cane under his arm: very upright, and humming a tune when he was clear of the counting-house. Mr. Quinion then formally engaged me to be as useful as I could in the warehouse of Murdstone and Grinby, at a salary, I think, of six shillings a week. I am not clear whether it was six or seven. I am inclined to believe, from my uncertainty on this head, that it was six at first and seven afterwards. He paid me a week down (from his own pocket, I believe), and I gave Mealy sixpence out of it to get my trunk carried to Windsor Terrace at night: it being too heavy for my strength, small as it was. I paid sixpence more for my dinner, which was a meat pie and a turn at a neighbouring pump; and passed the hour which was allowed for that meal, in walking about the streets. At the appointed time in the evening, Mr. Micawber reappeared. I washed my hands and face, to do the greater honour to his gentility, and we walked to our house, as I suppose I must now call it, together; Mr. Micawber impressing the names of streets, and the shapes of corner houses upon me, as we went along, that I might find my way back, easily, in the morning. Arrived at his house in Windsor Terrace (which I noticed was shabby like himself, but also, like himself, made all the show it could), he presented me to Mrs. Micawber, a thin and faded lady, not at all young, who was sitting in

night

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

with them; you had better do it yourself." But here Peggotty, who had been going about from one to another in a hurried way, kissing everybody, called out from the cart, in which we all were by this time (Em'ly and I on two little chairs, side by side), that Mrs. Gummidge must do it. So Mrs. Gummidge did it; and, I am sorry to relate, cast a damp upon the festive character of our departure, by immediately bursting into tears, and sinking subdued into the arms of Ham, with the declaration that she knowed she was a burden, and had better be carried to the House at once. Which I really thought was a sensible idea, that Ham might have acted on. [Illustration: Mrs. Gummidge casts a damp on our departure.] Away we went, however, on our holiday excursion; and the first thing we did was to stop at a church, where Mr. Barkis tied the horse to some rails, and went in with Peggotty, leaving little Em'ly and me alone in the chaise. I took that occasion to put my arm round Em'ly's waist, and propose that as I was going away so very soon now, we should determine to be very affectionate to one another, and very happy, all day. Little Em'ly consenting, and allowing me to kiss her, I became desperate; informing her, I recollect, that I never could love another, and that I was prepared to shed the blood of anybody who should aspire to her affections. How merry little Em'ly made herself about it! With what a demure assumption of being immensely older and wiser than I, the fairy little woman said I was "a silly boy;" and then laughed so charmingly that I forgot the pain of being called by that disparaging name, in the pleasure of looking at her. Mr. Barkis and Peggotty were a good while in the church, but came out at last, and then we drove away into the country. As we were going along, Mr. Barkis turned to me, and said, with a wink,--by-the-by, I should hardly have thought, before, that he _could_ wink: "What name was it as I wrote up in the cart?" "Clara Peggotty," I answered. "What name would it be as I should write up now, if there was a tilt here?" "Clara Peggotty, again?" I suggested. "Clara Peggotty BARKIS!" he returned, and burst into a roar of laughter that shook the chaise. In a word, they were married, and had gone into the church for no other purpose. Peggotty was resolved that it should be quietly done; and the clerk had given her away, and there had been no witnesses of the ceremony. She was a little confused when Mr. Barkis made this abrupt announcement of their union, and could not hug me enough in token of her unimpaired affection; but she soon became herself again, and said she was very glad it was over. We drove to a little inn in a bye road, where we were expected, and where we had a very comfortable dinner, and passed the day with great satisfaction. If Peggotty had been married every day for the last ten years, she could hardly have been more at her ease about it; it made no sort of difference in her: she was just the same as ever, and went out for a stroll with little Em'ly and me before tea, while Mr. Barkis philosophically smoked his pipe, and enjoyed himself, I suppose, with the contemplation of his happiness. If so, it sharpened his appetite; for I distinctly call to mind that, although he had eaten a good deal of pork and greens at dinner, and had finished off with a fowl or two, he was obliged to have cold boiled bacon for tea, and disposed of a large quantity without any emotion. I have often thought, since, what an odd, innocent, out-of-the-way kind of wedding it must have been! We got into the chaise again soon after dark, and drove cosily back, looking up at the stars, and talking about them. I was their chief exponent, and opened Mr. Barkis's mind to an amazing extent. I told him all I knew, but he would have believed anything I might have taken it into my head to impart to him; for he had a profound veneration for my abilities, and informed his wife in my hearing, on that very occasion, that I was "a young Roeshus"--by which I think he meant, prodigy. When we had exhausted the subject of the stars, or rather when I had exhausted the mental faculties of Mr. Barkis, little Em'ly and I made a cloak of an old wrapper, and sat under it for the rest of the journey. Ah, how I loved her! What happiness (I thought) if we were married, and were going away anywhere to live among the trees and in the fields, never growing older, never growing wiser, children ever, rambling hand in hand through sunshine and among flowery meadows, laying down our heads on moss at night, in a sweet sleep of purity and peace, and buried by the birds when we were dead! Some such picture, with no real world in it, bright with the light of our innocence, and vague as the stars afar off, was in my mind all the way. I am glad to think there were two such guileless hearts at Peggotty's marriage as little Em'ly's and mine. I am glad to think the Loves and Graces took such airy forms in its homely procession. Well, we came to the old boat again in good time at night; and there Mr. and Mrs. Barkis bade us good-bye, and drove away snugly to their own home. I felt then, for the first time, that I had lost Peggotty. I should have gone to bed with a sore heart indeed under any other roof but that which sheltered little Em'ly's head. Mr. Peggotty and Ham knew what was in my thoughts as well as I did, and were ready with some supper and their hospitable faces to drive it away. Little Em'ly came and sat beside me on the locker, for the only time in all that visit; and it was altogether a wonderful close to a wonderful day. It was a night tide; and soon after we went to bed, Mr. Peggotty and Ham went out to fish. I felt very brave at being left alone in the solitary house, the protector of Em'ly and Mrs. Gummidge, and only wished that a lion or a serpent, or any ill-disposed monster, would make an attack upon us, that I might destroy him, and cover myself with glory. But as nothing of the sort happened to be walking about on Yarmouth flats that night, I provided the best substitute I could by dreaming of dragons until morning. With morning came Peggotty; who called to me, as usual, under my window as if Mr. Barkis the carrier had been from first to last a dream too. After breakfast she took me to her own home, and a beautiful little home it was. Of all the moveables in it, I must have been most impressed by a certain old bureau of some dark wood in the parlor (the tile-floored kitchen was the general sitting-room), with a retreating top which opened, let down, and became a desk, within which, was a large quarto edition of Fox's Book of Martyrs. This precious volume, of which I do not recollect one word, I immediately discovered and immediately applied myself to; and I never visited the house afterwards, but I kneeled on a chair, opened the casket where this gem was enshrined, spread my arms over the desk, and fell to devouring the book afresh. I was chiefly edified, I am afraid, by the pictures, which were numerous, and represented all kinds of dismal horrors; but the Martyrs and Peggotty's house have been inseparable in my mind ever since, and are now. I took leave of Mr. Peggotty, and Ham, and Mrs. Gummidge, and little Em'ly, that day; and passed the night at Peggotty's, in a little room in the roof (with the crocodile-book on a shelf by the bed's head) which was to be always mine, Peggotty said, and should always be kept for me in exactly the same state. "Young or old, Davy dear, as long as I am alive and have this house over my head," said Peggotty, "you shall find it as if I expected you here directly minute. I shall keep it every day, as I used to keep your old little room, my darling; and if you was to go to China, you might think of it as being kept just the same, all the time you were away." I felt the truth and constancy of my dear old nurse, with all my heart, and thanked her as well as I could. That was not very well, for she spoke to me thus, with her arms round my neck, in the morning, and I was going home in the morning, and I went home in the morning, with herself and Mr. Barkis in the cart. They left me at the gate, not easily or lightly; and it was a strange sight to me to see the cart go on, taking Peggotty away, and leaving me under the old elm-trees looking at the house, in which there was no face to look on mine with love or liking any more. And now I fell into a state of neglect, which I cannot look back upon without compassion. I fell at once into a solitary condition,--apart from all friendly notice, apart from the society of all other boys of my own age, apart from all companionship but my own spiritless thoughts,--which seems to cast its gloom upon this paper as I write. What would I have given, to have been sent to the hardest school that ever was kept!--to have been taught something, anyhow, anywhere! No such hope dawned upon me. They disliked me; and they sullenly, sternly, steadily, overlooked me. I think Mr. Murdstone's means were straitened at about this time; but it is little to the purpose. He could not bear me; and in putting me from him he tried, as I believe, to put away the notion that I had any claim upon him--and succeeded. I was not actively ill-used. I was not beaten, or starved; but the wrong that was done to me had no intervals of relenting, and was done in a systematic, passionless manner. Day after day, week after week, month after month, I was coldly neglected. I wonder sometimes, when I think of it, what they would have done if I had been taken with an illness; whether I should have lain down in my lonely room, and languished through it in my usual solitary way, or whether anybody would have helped me out. When Mr. and Miss Murdstone were at home, I took my meals with them; in their absence, I ate and drank by myself. At all times I lounged about the house and neighbourhood quite disregarded, except that they were jealous of my making any friends: thinking, perhaps, that, if I did, I might complain to some one. For this reason, though Mr. Chillip often asked me to go and see him (he was a widower, having, some years before that, lost a little small light-haired wife, whom I can just remember connecting in my own thoughts with a pale tortoise-shell cat), it was but seldom that I enjoyed the happiness of passing an afternoon in his closet of a surgery; reading some book that was new to me, with the smell of the whole pharmacopoeia coming up my nose, or pounding something in a mortar under his mild directions. For the same reason, added no doubt to the old dislike of her, I was seldom allowed to visit Peggotty. Faithful to her promise, she either came to see me, or met me somewhere near, once every week, and never empty-handed; but many and bitter were the disappointments I had, in being refused permission to pay a visit to her at her house. Some few times, however, at long intervals, I was allowed to go there; and then I found out that Mr. Barkis was something of a miser, or as Peggotty dutifully expressed it, was "a little near," and kept a heap of money in a box under his bed, which he pretended was only full of coats and trousers. In this coffer, his riches hid themselves with such a tenacious modesty, that the smallest instalments could only be tempted out by artifice; so that Peggotty had to prepare a long and elaborate scheme, a very Gunpowder Plot, for every Saturday's expenses. All this time I was so conscious of the waste of any promise I had given, and of my being utterly neglected, that I should have been perfectly miserable, I have no doubt, but for the old books. They were my only comfort; and I was as true to them as they were to me, and read them over and over I don't know how many times more. I now approach a period of my life, which I can never lose the remembrance of, while I remember any thing; and the recollection of which has often, without my invocation, come before me like a ghost, and haunted happier times. I had been out, one day, loitering somewhere, in the listless, meditative manner that my way of life engendered, when, turning the corner of a lane near our house, I came upon Mr. Murdstone walking with a gentleman. I was confused, and was going by them, when the gentleman cried: "What! Brooks!" "No, sir, David Copperfield," I said. "Don't tell me. You are Brooks," said the gentleman. "You are Brooks of Sheffield. That's your name." At these words, I observed the gentleman more attentively. His laugh coming to my remembrance too, I knew him to be Mr. Quinion, whom I had gone over to Lowestoft with Mr. Murdstone to see, before--it is no matter--I need not recall when. "And how do you get on, and where are you being educated, Brooks?" said Mr. Quinion. He had put his hand upon my shoulder, and turned me about, to walk with them. I did not know what to reply, and glanced dubiously at Mr. Murdstone. "He is at home at present," said the latter. "He is not being educated anywhere. I don't know what to do with him. He is a difficult subject." That old, double look was on me for a moment; and then his eye darkened with a frown, as it turned, in its aversion, elsewhere. "Humph!" said Mr. Quinion, looking at us both, I thought. "Fine weather!" Silence ensued, and I was considering how I could best disengage my shoulder from his hand, and go away, when he said: "I suppose you are a pretty sharp fellow still? Eh, Brooks?" "Aye! He is sharp enough," said Mr. Murdstone, impatiently. "You had better let him go. He will not thank you for troubling him." On this hint, Mr. Quinion released me, and I made the best of my way home. Looking back as I turned into the front garden, I saw Mr. Murdstone leaning against the wicket of the churchyard, and Mr. Quinion talking to him. They were both looking after me, and I felt that they were speaking of me. Mr. Quinion lay at our house that night. After breakfast, the next morning, I had put my chair away, and was going out of the room, when Mr. Murdstone called me back. He then gravely repaired to another table, where his sister sat herself at her desk. Mr. Quinion, with his hands in his pockets, stood looking out of window; and I stood looking at them all. "David," said Mr. Murdstone, "to the young this is a world for action; not for moping and droning in." --"As you do," added his sister. "Jane Murdstone, leave it to me, if you please. I say, David, to the young this is a world for action, and not for moping and droning in. It is especially so for a young boy of your disposition, which requires a great deal of correcting; and to which no greater service can be done than to force it to conform to the ways of the working world, and to bend it and break it." "For stubbornness won't do here," said his sister. "What it wants, is, to be crushed. And crushed it must be. Shall be, too!" He gave her a look, half in remonstrance, half in approval, and went on: "I suppose you know, David, that I am not rich. At any rate, you know it now. You have received some considerable education already. Education is costly; and even if it were not, and I could afford it, I am of opinion that it would not be at all advantageous to you to be kept at a school. What is before you, is a fight with the world; and the sooner you begin it, the better." I think it occurred to me that I had already begun it, in my poor way: but it occurs to me now, whether or no. "You have heard 'the counting-house' mentioned sometimes," said Mr. Murdstone. "The counting-house, sir?" I repeated. "Of Murdstone and Grinby, in the wine trade," he replied. I suppose I looked uncertain, for he went on hastily: "You have heard the 'counting-house' mentioned, or the business, or the cellars, or the wharf, or something about it." "I think I have heard the business mentioned, sir," I said, remembering what I vaguely knew of his and his sister's resources. "But I don't know when." "It does not matter when," he returned. "Mr. Quinion manages that business." I glanced at the latter deferentially as he stood looking out of window. "Mr. Quinion suggests that it gives employment to some other boys, and that he sees no reason why it shouldn't, on the same terms, give employment to you." "He having," Mr. Quinion observed in a low voice, and half turning round, "no other prospect, Murdstone." Mr. Murdstone, with an impatient, even an angry gesture, resumed, without noticing what he had said: "Those terms are, that you will earn enough for yourself to provide for your eating and drinking, and pocket-money. Your lodging (which I have arranged for) will be paid by me. So will your washing--" "--Which will be kept down to my estimate," said his sister. "Your clothes will be looked after for you, too," said Mr. Murdstone; "as you will not be able, yet awhile, to get them for yourself. So you are now going to London, David, with Mr. Quinion, to begin the world on your own account." "In short, you are provided for," observed his sister; "and will please to do your duty." Though I quite understood that the purpose of this announcement was to get rid of me, I have no distinct remembrance whether it pleased or frightened me. My impression is, that I was in a state of confusion about it, and, oscillating between the two points, touched neither. Nor had I much time for the clearing of my thoughts, as Mr. Quinion was to go upon the morrow. Behold me, on the morrow, in a much-worn little white hat, with a black crape round it for my mother, a black jacket, and a pair of hard stiff corduroy trousers--which Miss Murdstone considered the best armour for the legs in that fight with the world which was now to come off: behold me so attired, and with my little worldly all before me in a small trunk, sitting, a lone lorn child (as Mrs. Gummidge might have said), in the postchaise that was carrying Mr. Quinion to the London coach at Yarmouth! See, how our house and church are lessening in the distance; how the grave beneath the tree is blotted out by intervening objects; how the spire points upward from my old playground no more, and the sky is empty! CHAPTER XI. I BEGIN LIFE ON MY OWN ACCOUNT, AND DON'T LIKE IT. I know enough of the world now, to have almost lost the capacity of being much surprised by anything; but it is matter of some surprise to me, even now, that I can have been so easily thrown away at such an age. A child of excellent abilities, and with strong powers of observation, quick, eager, delicate, and soon hurt bodily or mentally, it seems wonderful to me that nobody should have made any sign in my behalf. But none was made; and I became, at ten years old, a little labouring hind in the service of Murdstone and Grinby. Murdstone and Grinby's warehouse was at the water side. It was down in Blackfriars. Modern improvements have altered the place; but it was the last house at the bottom of a narrow street, curving down hill to the river, with some stairs at the end, where people took boat. It was a crazy old house with a wharf of its own, abutting on the water when the tide was in, and on the mud when the tide was out, and literally overrun with rats. Its panelled rooms, discolored with the dirt and smoke of a hundred years, I dare say; its decaying floors and staircase; the squeaking and scuffling of the old grey rats down in the cellars; and the dirt and rottenness of the place; are things, not of many years ago, in my mind, but of the present instant. They are all before me, just as they were in the evil hour when I went among them for the first time, with my trembling hand in Mr. Quinion's. Murdstone and Grinby's trade was among a good many kinds of people, but an important branch of it was the supply of wines and spirits to certain packet ships. I forget now where they chiefly went, but I think there were some among them that made voyages both to the East and West Indies. I know that a great many empty bottles were one of the consequences of this traffic, and that certain men and boys were employed to examine them against the light, and reject those that were flawed, and to rinse and wash them. When the empty bottles ran short, there were labels to be pasted on full ones, or corks to be fitted to them, or seals to be put upon the corks, or finished bottles to be packed in casks. All this work was my work, and of the boys employed upon it I was one. There were three or four of us, counting me. My working place was established in a corner of the warehouse, where Mr. Quinion could see me, when he chose to stand up on the bottom rail of his stool in the counting-house, and look at me through a window above the desk. Hither, on the first morning of my so auspiciously beginning life on my own account, the oldest of the regular boys was summoned to show me my business. His name was Mick Walker, and he wore a ragged apron and a paper cap. He informed me that his father was a bargeman, and walked, in a black velvet head-dress, in the Lord Mayor's Show. He also informed me that our principal associate would be another boy whom he introduced by the--to me--extraordinary name of Mealy Potatoes. I discovered, however, that this youth had not been christened by that name, but that it had been bestowed upon him in the warehouse, on account of his complexion, which was pale or mealy. Mealy's father was a waterman, who had the additional distinction of being a fireman, and was engaged as such at one of the large theatres; where some young relation of Mealy's--I think his little sister--did Imps in the Pantomimes. No words can express the secret agony of my soul as I sunk into this companionship; compared these henceforth every-day associates with those of my happier childhood--not to say with Steerforth, Traddles, and the rest of those boys; and felt my hopes of growing up to be a learned and distinguished man, crushed in my bosom. The deep remembrance of the sense I had, of being utterly without hope now; of the shame I felt in my position; of the misery it was to my young heart to believe that day by day what I had learned, and thought, and delighted in, and raised my fancy and my emulation up by, would pass away from me, little by little, never to be brought back any more; cannot be written. As often as Mick Walker went away in the course of that forenoon, I mingled my tears with the water in which I was washing the bottles; and sobbed as if there were a flaw in my own breast, and it were in danger of bursting. The counting-house clock was at half-past twelve, and there was general preparation for going to dinner, when Mr. Quinion tapped at the counting-house window, and beckoned to me to go in. I went in, and found there a stoutish, middle-aged person, in a brown surtout and black tights and shoes, with no more hair upon his head (which was a large one, and very shining) than there is upon an egg, and with a very extensive face, which he turned full upon me. His clothes were shabby, but he had an imposing shirt-collar on. He carried a jaunty sort of a stick, with a large pair of rusty tassels to it; and a quizzing-glass hung outside his coat,--for ornament, I afterwards found, as he very seldom looked through it, and couldn't see anything when he did. "This," said Mr. Quinion, in allusion to myself, "is he." "This," said the stranger, with a certain condescending roll in his voice, and a certain indescribable air of doing something genteel, which impressed me very much, "is Master Copperfield. I hope I see you well, sir?" I said I was very well, and hoped he was. I was sufficiently ill at ease, Heaven knows; but it was not in my nature to complain much at that time of my life, so I said I was very well, and hoped he was. "I am," said the stranger, "thank Heaven, quite well. I have received a letter from Mr. Murdstone, in which he mentions that he would desire me to receive into an apartment in the rear of my house, which is at present unoccupied--and is, in short, to be let as a--in short," said the stranger, with a smile and in a burst of confidence, "as a bed-room--the young beginner whom I have now the pleasure to--" and the stranger waved his hand, and settled his chin in his shirt collar. "This is Mr. Micawber," said Mr. Quinion to me. "Ahem!" said the stranger, "that is my name." "Mr. Micawber," said Mr. Quinion, "is known to Mr. Murdstone. He takes orders for us on commission, when he can get any. He has been written to by Mr. Murdstone, on the subject of your lodgings, and he will receive you as a lodger." "My address," said Mr. Micawber, "is Windsor Terrace, City Road. I--in short," said Mr. Micawber, with the same genteel air, and in another burst of confidence--"I live there." I made him a bow. "Under the impression," said Mr. Micawber, "that your peregrinations in this metropolis have not as yet been extensive, and that you might have some difficulty in penetrating the arcana of the Modern Babylon in the direction of the City Road--in short," said Mr. Micawber, in another burst of confidence, "that you might lose yourself--I shall be happy to call this evening, and install you in the knowledge of the nearest way." I thanked him with all my heart, for it was friendly in him to offer to take that trouble. "At what hour," said Mr. Micawber, "shall I--" "At about eight," said Mr. Quinion. "At about eight," said Mr. Micawber. "I beg to wish you good day, Mr. Quinion. I will intrude no longer." So he put on his hat, and went out with his cane under his arm: very upright, and humming a tune when he was clear of the counting-house. Mr. Quinion then formally engaged me to be as useful as I could in the warehouse of Murdstone and Grinby, at a salary, I think, of six shillings a week. I am not clear whether it was six or seven. I am inclined to believe, from my uncertainty on this head, that it was six at first and seven afterwards. He paid me a week down (from his own pocket, I believe), and I gave Mealy sixpence out of it to get my trunk carried to Windsor Terrace at night: it being too heavy for my strength, small as it was. I paid sixpence more for my dinner, which was a meat pie and a turn at a neighbouring pump; and passed the hour which was allowed for that meal, in walking about the streets. At the appointed time in the evening, Mr. Micawber reappeared. I washed my hands and face, to do the greater honour to his gentility, and we walked to our house, as I suppose I must now call it, together; Mr. Micawber impressing the names of streets, and the shapes of corner houses upon me, as we went along, that I might find my way back, easily, in the morning. Arrived at his house in Windsor Terrace (which I noticed was shabby like himself, but also, like himself, made all the show it could), he presented me to Mrs. Micawber, a thin and faded lady, not at all young, who was sitting in

purity

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

within a fraction of an inch of the tiny hole in its sun. The edge of the sunlight moving across the miniature city is still a good two feet beyond the spot Belloq has settled on. And now that line of light is broken by the shadow of an ornate sun at the top of the staff. Indy's face reflects his concentration. And then his immense pleasure. He sees what he came for. Out of the miniature city, one small building is being lit by a tiny beam of sunlight in the center of the shadow of the metal sun. And by some trick of ancient artistry, this one building responds to the sunlight like none of the others. The golden light permeates it: it seems to glow. The building is in a direct line with Belloq's - all the Frenchman's other calculations were right - but it is a foot and a half beyond it. EXT. IN THE CAMP - DAY Sallah, sweating profusely, has finished serving the line of Breakfasting Germans and now heads back to replace the kettle and get away. HUNGRY GERMAN Water. Bring us water. INT. MAP ROOM Indy is on his knees at the miniature city, a special tape measure in his hand. Indy has the tape strung from Belloq's mistaken spot to his own correct spot. He gets his reading, leaps up and crosses to the erect staff. He pulls the headpiece off the staff and hides it in his robes. He quickly breaks the wooden staff in two and throws the pieces behind a pile of debris. Then he moves quickly to beneath the skylight. INDY (stage whisper) Sallah. (he waits, then louder) Sallah! More waiting. Nothing. Indy looks around for some alternative means of escape. The room doesn't offer any. He looks up at the skylight again. INDY (loudest) Sallah! A long pause. Then something comes down. A makeshift rope. Really just a bunch of clothing tied together - tunics, robes, pants. But what we see first and most prominently, the first section of Indy's escape rope, is a bright Nazi flag. Indy beams and climbs. EXT. ABOVE THE MAP ROOM - DAY Indy sticks his head out the skylight, sees it clear and flops his body out. Sallah, crouching behind the oil drum, immediately starts pulling in the makeshift rope. Sallah stuffs the rope in the oil drum and the two men begin waking toward some tents. HUNGRY GERMAN (O.S.) Hey, you! More water over here! Sallah glances at Indy, Then hurries back in that direction. The Hungry German focuses on Indy. HUNGRY GERMAN Why aren't you at the digs? Come here! Indy bows in wild subservience and hurries off in the opposite direction. HUNGRY GERMAN (yelling after him, irritated) No, dummkopf, I said come! EXT. BETWEEN TWO TENTS - DAY Indy hustles between the tents. Up ahead, two German Officers stop to talk, blocking his exit. He moves along the side of one of the tents until he finds an opening and slips inside. INT. THE TENT Indy finds himself in a tent set up for rather comfortable living. He has just started to cross it when he hears a loud, excited grunting. He turns toward the sound. In the corner, tied to a chair and gagged is Marion. Indy rushes to her, snatches the gag from her mouth and embraces her. They kiss, deep and long. INDY I though you were dead. MARION They were throwing me around like a rag doll. INDY They must have switched baskets. Thank god for that! Bless those bastards. Have they hurt you? MARION No. Not since I got here. They just asked about you - what you knew. The Frenchman's got the hot's for me. I've been playing that along. Oh, Indy, get me out of here. Indy pulls out a knife and then stops suddenly, thinking. MARION What's wrong? INDY (putting the knife away) I have to leave you here for a little while. I know where the Ark is. If I take you out of here they'll start combing the place for us. MARION (louder) Cut me loose! INDY Keep your voice down. MARION (screaming) I said get me out of - Indy pops the gag back in her mouth. Her eyes widen in fury and she grunts obscenities at him. INDY Look, you don't know how glad I am to see you. And I don't like doing this. But the whole thing will be shot if you don't just sit here quietly. They haven't hurt you in the last twenty-four hours, they aren't going to start now. I'll be back to get you in no time. He kisses her forehead, jumps up and hurries out of the tent. EXT. SAND DUNE OUTSIDE DIGS - DAY With the digs behind them, Indy and Sallah run up to the ridge of the dune and over the top. At the bottom of the far side, Omar's truck is parked. Omar and his men are waiting. EXT. DIFFERENT DUNE - DAY This new spot gives Indy a higher, better view of the whole scene. Indy is using a surveyor's instrument to take a reading - WHAT HE SEES Looking through the instrument, Indy gets a line from the map room through the site where the Nazis are digging in the dunes to a spot several dunes over. We focus on that virgin spot of well-hidden sand as - INDY There! EXT. INDY'S DIG - DAY Omar's truck is parked at the spot just viewed from afar. Dunes rise on either side. One of Omar's men has been posted as a lookout up on a ridge. Everybody else - Indy, Sallah, Omar, and his men - have begun digging for the Wells of the Souls. DISSOLVE TO: SAME SCENE - NIGHT They continue to dig furiously, all of them drenched in sweat. The hole has grown but this is slow, back-breaking work. INT. COMMAND TENT - TANIS DIGS - NIGHT Belloq, SHLIEMANN the ranking Nazi, and Shliemann's Aide, GOBLER, come into the tent, which is full of charts and maps, drawings of the Ark, radio equipment, liquor and food. The men have been out digging for the Well all day. They are tired, discouraged, testy. In all matters, Gobler shows his alliance with Shliemann against Belloq with small looks and body language. The Frenchman has disappointed them and he is feeling the isolation of a scapegoat. Belloq gets himself a drink as Shliemann towels off his face. BELLOQ I cautioned you about being premature with that communiqu to Berlin. Archeology is not an exact science. If does not adhere to time schedules. SHLIEMANN The Fuhrer is not a patient man. He demands constant reports and he expects progress. You led me to believe - BELLOQ Nothing. I have made no promises. I said only that it looked very favorable. Perhaps the Ark will still be found in an adjoining chamber. Based on the information in our possession, my calculations were correct. Perhaps some bit of evidence still eludes us. Perhaps GOBLER Perhaps the girl can help us. Belloq shoots him an angry look. SHLIEMANN My feeling exactly. She was in possession of the original piece for years. She may know much. (really evil) If properly motivated... BELLOQ I tell you, she knows nothing useful. SHLIEMANN I'm surprised to find you squeamish. That is not your reputation. But it needn't concern you. I have the perfect man for this kind of work. Shliemann signals Gobler, who steps outside the tent a moment, calls someone and then reappears. Belloq looks warily at the entrance. After a moment Belzig enters, reeking villainy. When his eyes find Shliemann, his superior, he snaps a crisp "Heil, Hitler!" at him, holding his palm rigid a long time, exposing a burned scar in the prefect shape of the sun medallion. EXT. INDY'S DIG - NIGHT In the eerie conjunction of moonlight and torchlight, Indy and the other men step back in awe of their discovery: there, flush with the bottom of their pit, is a heavy stone entry door to an underground chamber. Special prying tools are produced. With two men assigned to each of the two long tools, they work in unison to open the vault. They open it a foot and the other men rush in to flop the heavy door completely open. Down inside, only blackness. The men quickly prostrate themselves around the edge of the entry to look inside. Indy and Sallah each take a torch and hold them down the hole. WHAT THEY SEE The Well of the Souls is a spooky chamber thirty feet deep. The walls are covered with hieroglyphics and carvings. The roof is supported intermittently by stone pillars, the closest of which hits the roof very near the entry hole. The Well is quite large; as Indy and Sallah wave their torches, more and more of the room is revealed. Now the far end of the chamber comes into view. There is a stone altar down there and on this elaborated carved platform is a stone chest, big enough to enclose the Lost Ark and protect it from the ravages of time. This altar appears to be the only place on the floor of the Well that is not covered by a strange, dark carpet of some kind. INDY The Ark must be in that stone case. What's that gray stuff all over the floor - He breaks off realizing exactly what that carpet is. He blanches. Indiana Jones blanches. Indy drops his torch to the floor of the Well. This is answered by the most horrific HISSING imaginable. WHAT HE SEES That think dark carpet is moving. It's alive. It's thousands and thousands of deadly poisonous snakes - Egyptian asps. And the only thing that seems capable of avoiding this venomous groundcover is the altar. The snakes ebb and flow near it, but never encroach on it, as though repelled by some invisible force. Indy shakes his head and talks to himself. INDY Why snakes? Why did it have to be snakes? Anything else. After a moment of this, he stops. He gathers his energy and resolve and gets back to the task. SALLAH Asps. Very dangerous. Where Indy's torch had landed is a circle of snake-free floor. The snakes hate the flame; they stay away. INDY Lots of torches. And oil. I want a landing strip down there. INT. THE WELL OF THE SOULS Fifteen torches have been dropped to the floor of the chamber, combining to make a good-sized clear zone. Smoke begins to fill the room. Several canisters of oil have been lowered into this space. Now, a large wooden crate is lowered slowly by rope. Rope handles are attached to each end of the crate. Up at the hole, Indy gives Sallah a reassuring pat, takes a breath, and swings carefully onto a rope hanging from the hole. Despite his care, he swings a bit and his feet hit the stone pillar which is so near the entry. Surprisingly, the pillar actually moves a bit, showering a light rain of crumbled stone to the floor below. Indy lands on the floor of the Well. He looks at the altar over a sea of undulating death. He picks up an oil canister and splashes two parallel lines of oil and lights them. A path six feet wide begins to open to the altar. Behind Indy, Sallah comes quickly down the rope. We begin to INTERCUT all the action in the Well from here on with insert shots of the snakes outside the flames. Snakes and snakes. We see: snakes piled and entwined six inches deep; mother snakes laying snake eggs; snake eggs hatching little snakes; snakes cannibalizing other snakes. INT. MARION'S TENT Belloq has been talking to the still-bound Marion. He has removed her gag. He is impatient, angry, uncomfortable. Caught between two forces. BELLOQ Believe me, you made a mistake. If you would just give me something to placate them. Some bit of information. MARION I swear to you, I know nothing more. I have no loyalty to Jones. He's brought me only trouble. He wants to believe her. BELLOQ I cannot control them. Marion's frightened look shifts suddenly to the entrance of the tent. There are new arrivals there - Shliemann, Gobler and Belzig. Belzig carries a black leather case. He steps forward and smiles at Marion. BELZIG We meet again, Fraulein. EXT. INDY'S DIG - JUST BEFORE DAWN The sky is just beginning to lighten over the dunes to the east, making dangerously obvious the thin column of smoke rising from the entrance to the Well. Omar and his men are peering through the smoke down into the Well. INT. THE WELL OF THE SOULS Indy and Sallah are on the altar. Pushing together with all their strength, the heavy stone top of the protective chest begins to slide away. Indy and Sallah exchange slightly wary but very excited looks, then continue to push. As the Ark begins to be exposed, the air seems to almost vibrate, to become electrostatically charged. We hear what sounds like a low HUM. The sea of snakes around the altar draws back further from this presence. As the top of the stone chest is pushed completely off and slams down beside it, we see THE LOST ARK OF THE COVENANT. It is awesomely beautiful, breathtaking. 4 feet long, 2.5 feet wide and 2.5 feet high. It's height, however, is increased by the two sculptured gold angels mounted facing each other on the top. Though the body of the Ark is acacia wood, it has been overlaid with gold. An elaborate gold crown surrounds the top edge and gold carrying rings are attached to each corner. Sallah is mesmerized by the sight. His hand starts to reach out and touch one of the angels, but Indy grabs it. INDY Don't touch it! Never touch it! The wooden crate stands open next to the stone chest. Now Indy extracts the wooden poles from its rings and begins fitting them through the rings in the Ark. This takes some maneuvering by the two men, but soon they are able to lift the Ark clear of the stone chest and into the wooden crate. They extract the poles, fasten the top of the crate and stick the poles through the rings of the wooden crate. They start back toward the space under the hole. The fire strips have begun to dwindle, as have some of the torches. The snakes move slowly in toward the clear spaces. Indy and Sallah eye them nervously as they hurry along with their heavy load. Under the hole, they hurriedly attach ropes to the wooden crate and it is pulled up. Indy's concentration is on the tide of snakes. INDY Hurry up! Why did it have to be snakes? Sallah takes the next rope and climbs quickly out of the Well. Indy has picked up a torch and now throws it at a pool of snakes who are too close for his comfort. He turns and takes hold of the exit rope. He gives it a first tug and it falls down into the Well, landing partly beyond the ring of fire where is instantly disappears in a tangle of angry, hissing asps. Indy looks up at the hole. INDY What the - Smiling down at him from the perimeter of the entry are Belloq, Shliemann and Gobler. BELLOQ Why, Dr. Jones, whatever are you doing in such a nasty place? Belloq and the Germans laugh. INDY Why don't you fellows come down here? I'll show you. BELLOQ No thank you, my friend. (he glances around him) I think we are all very comfortable up here. EXT. INDY'S DIG - DAWN Sunlight is flooding this tableau: Sallah, Omar and his men are being held at bay by ten armed Nazis. The wooden crate sits safely nearby. Belzig and another Nazi have the gagged Marion held in their rough grasp. BELLOQ (down to Indy) After all these years, it is most considerate of you to aid me in this way. As Belloq speaks, Shliemann exchanges a look with Belzig. Belzig smiles and takes the gag from Marion's mouth. INT. WELLS OF THE SOULS Shliemann smiles down at Indy. SHLIEMANN I'm afraid we must be going now, Dr. Jones. Our prize is awaited in Berlin. But I do not wish to leave you down in that awful place... (he give a sign) ...all alone. Belzig and the Nazi move Marion to the hole and, to Belloq's surprise, push her in. Marion falls thirty feet screaming. Indy drops his torch, braces, and catches her! Her weight knocks him to the ground, almost into the snakes. She looks around at the snakes, clinging to him more desperately as he struggles to his feet trying to unload her. MARION Don't put me down! Up at the hole, there's plenty of dissension. BELLOQ The girl was mine! SHLIEMANN She is of no use to us. Only our mission for the Fuhrer matters. Shliemann glances meaningfully around at the other Nazis. SHLIEMANN I wonder sometimes, Monsieur, if you have that clearly in mind. Belloq feels how much he is the outsider, his own vulnerability. He backs down with the wisdom of survival. He turns to look down at Indy and Marion. His manner is gallant. BELLOQ Goodbye, mademoiselle. (a pause, then with respect) Indiana Jones... adieu! Belloq and the others step back from the hole and unseen Nazis slam the heavy stone door into place. Marion screams. Her scream is accompanied by - A huge WHOOSH! as air is sucked out and the chamber is sealed. Half of the torches still burning go out with the sound. The remaining torches continue to extinguish at punctuating intervals throughout the following action and the snakes immediately flood into the newly-darkened spaces. Indy puts Marion down and snatches up two burning torches. He hands one to Marion. INDY Don't panic. There's plenty of time for that later. Wave that at anything that slithers. Indy holds his torch out like a lantern and begins a slow O- turn, his eyes peering into the gloom, examining every inch of wall and ceiling. MARION What are you doing? INDY Just watch the floor. Reminded of the encroaching snakes, Marion waves her torch at the nearest edge of their circle. She looks faint. Indy continues his slow turn. MARION Whatever you're doing, do it faster. INDY (he spots something) There! His head whips around, looking at the pillars around the room. He sees what he wants. He grabs one of the oil canisters, looks back to the spot on the wall he's chosen and splashes oil on the floor in that direction, then lights it. A path opens toward that wall. INDY Come on! Marion is frozen in her spot. Indy drags her after him. He splashes oil the rest of the way to the wall. It lights and Indy pulls Marion over to the wall. He pours the remaining oil in a circle around them, creating a safe zone there. INDY Stay here! MARION (grabbing him) Where are you going? INDY I'll be back in a minute. We're going through this wall. Marion looks at the wall, which looks like all the rest to her. She thinks he's crazy. INDY Just keep your eyes open and get ready to run. No matter what happens to me. MARION (panicked) What do you mean? Too late. Indy runs back through the path of flames to the center of the room. Snakes strike as his flying heels. Indy reaches the base of the pillar which he touched briefly on his original descent. He uses his torch to clear away the scattered snakes climbing on it, then pulls out his whip. He draws it back, then wraps is solidly around the pillar 15 feet up. With the torch in his mouth, he begins climbing the pillar. It moves ominously under his weight. The last two torches still burning on the floor go out. Now the only light in the chamber is provided by the torches held by Indy and Marion and the dwindling oil flames. Snakes move in and surround the base of Indy's pillar. The path between Marion and the center of the room is overrun. The circle of flame around Marion is dying down. She looks beyond it with terror-widened eyes, then up through the increasing smoke at the distant Indy. Near the top of the pillar, Indy's hands strain along his taut whip, which he has moves higher. A snake slithers into view there, inches from Indy's straining face. Indy turns his head so the torch in his mouth can burn it. The snake falls from the pillar. Indy's torch is dwindling. Indy works his body around so that he is on the side of the pillar away from Marion. The pillar moves, showering dust. Indy looks at the chamber wall five feet away, takes a breath and swings his legs up against it. He is now braced between pillar and wall. MARION (O.S.) (screaming) Where are you?! Snakes are moving in force up the pillar toward Indy's dwindling torch. Indy grasps the pillar for dear life, grimaces with exertion and pushes against the wall with all he's got. The pillar begins to break loose of the ceiling, then stops. Indy's eyes are on the torch. It is just a spot of flame now. Snakes are sliding up toward his hands. Indy again pushes against the wall and the torch falls out of his mouth. The pillar goes! In the dim light, we see it fall like a tree directly at Marion. Indy rides it down. The top hits the wall three feet from a cringing Marion and smashes through to a black chamber beyond. Indy flies off into the darkness. Gone. Marion clutches her torch at the black hole. MARION Indy! Where are you?! Please Lord! There is a moment that seems an eternity, then Indy appears like an apparition out of the void. INDY Come on! He grabs her and helps her over the remains of the wall into - INT. THE CATACOMBS The winding string of connected chambers is revealed to them only a few feet at a time as their torch lights the way. MARION The snakes... are they here? INDY I guess not. I think I'd be dead. MARION Do you know where you're going? INDY Absolutely. MARION Thank god. Where? INDY Out. They round a corner and flush a covey of bats. Marion screams. INDY Don't do that. It scares me. Marion gives him a look. They round a corner and begin a walk through a maze of chambers that present for their inspection: moldering mummies and stacked sarcophagi; a room decorated with a thousand human skulls; a wall crawling with huge scarabaeid beetles. Marion is quite naturally a nervous wreck; she jumps when Indy grabs her suddenly and points. INDY Look! WHAT THEY SEE There, coming through the crack in the corner of the next chamber, is white blessed sunlight. EXT. THE TANIS DIGS - NEAR AIRSTRIP - DAY Indy and Marion peek out into the light from the shadows of an abandoned excavation. Before them is the improvised airstrip serving the digs: a crude runway, a tent supply depot, two fuel tank trucks. Down by the fuel trucks a German Mechanic is looking skyward. Now Indy and Marion look there too, drawn by the roaring sound of - A Flying Wing, which is circling over the digs in preparation to landing. Now a new figure approaches the German Mechanic. It is Gobler; he yells to the mechanic, indicating the plane. GOBLER Get is gassed immediately! It has an important cargo to take out! In the distance, the Flying Wing lands and rolls toward the men. Gobler spins and heads back toward the main camp, which is hidden from view by a rise. Indy and Marion watch him go. INDY When the Ark gets loaded, we're already going to be on that plane. The Flying Wing rolls up into the space near the fuel trucks. The German Mechanic puts blue blocks in front of the tires as the engines continue to roar. Indy and Marion run in a crouch to a hiding spot closer to the plane, near the supply tent. Suddenly, a Second German Mechanic appears behind them. He is as surprised as they are, but recovers quickly and swings a big monkey wrench at Indy. Indy grabs the swinging arm and the two men tumble out into the open, wrestling. Marion remains hidden, moving fast among the crates. The first German Mechanic, who is just pulling the fuel hose from the tank truck to the plane, sees the combatants and runs to help his countryman. He is almost upon them when Indy puts the Second German away with a devastating left - right - left combination. He turns to find the first German Mechanic flying at him. The roll toward the rear of the Flying Wing and its lethally spinning reversed propellers. In the cockpit of the Flying Wing, the Pilot has been fiddling with his gauges just prior to shutting off his engines. Now he notices the fight going on outside. The fistfight between Indy and the German Mechanic has taken on a new stomach-tightening dimension. The men are fighting and flailing in and out between the spinning props at the back of the plane's wings. Each man comes within inches of becoming instant mincemeat. The Pilot slides away the top of his cockpit and stands up. He pulls a Luger from his side and points it, waiting for a clear shot at Indy. The German Mechanic kicks Indy away from him and the Pilot aims his pistol. Suddenly, Marion appears behind the Pilot, standing on the opposite wing, and bashes him over the head with one of the blue blocks that was holding the tires. The Pilot drops down into the cockpit, his body falling on the throttle. The engines roar louder, revving up. The plane begins to roll, rotating around its one still- blocked set of tires. Marion grabs onto the cockpit to keep from slipping into the props. She bends into the cockpit, trying to pull the Pilot's body off the throttle. No luck. She grimaces and climbs inside. Her shoulder bumps the top of the cockpit; it slides tightly shut above her. Under the moving wing, Indy delivers a knockout rightcross to the German Mechanic which sends him staggering back toward a roaring propeller. Indy's grimace registers the man's demise and a fine mist of blood wafts toward him. Indy spins toward the sound of crumpling metal and sees - The other prop of the Flying Wing slice into a tank truck. The airplane fuel inside floods out onto the pavement, surrounding the plane. Indy backpedals away from the plane, his eyes searching the scene for Marion. Suddenly, he is shocked to see her in the cockpit. He runs toward her, skidding through the gasoline. INDY Get out! Get out! Marion is struggling with the top of the cockpit. She can't budge it. She's trapped. EXT. THE COMMAND TENT - DAY Three Armed Nazis stand guard around the wooden crate containing the Ark. It is sitting near the flopped-open entrance to the Command Tent and there is furious activity going on here. Belloq, Shliemann, Gobler, Belzig and assorted Aides are packing up all the papers and personal items in preparation for a hasty departure. A large crowd of Arab Diggers is milling about among the tents. They all want to get a look at the Ark. Sallah is among them. All at once, there is a earthshaking explosion. Al eyes turn toward the rise that hides the airstrip. A huge fireball floats into view over there. Everyone starts running toward it. Shliemann yells at Belzig and the Armed Nazis. SHLIEMANN Stay with the Ark! EXT. THE RISE ABOVE AIRSTRIP - DAY Almost all the Arabs and Germans in the digs have congregated here and are staring at the burning remains of the Flying Wing. Belloq and Shliemann arrive just as the second fuel truck blows up. The concussion knocks many of the observers flat. Belloq, Shliemann and Gobler watch the scene in alarm. SHLIEMANN Sabotage! BELLOQ We must get the Ark away from this place immediately! SHLIEMANN (to Gobler) Have it put on the truck. We'll fly out of Cairo. Gobler snaps his heels, turns to go. SHLIEMANN And Gobler - (Gobler stops) I want plenty of protection. Gobler nods and runs off. Shliemann heads back toward camp. Belloq hesitates a long moment, studying the burning wreckage with an odd, suspicious look. Finally, he turns and leaves, passing a nearby stack of barrels. When he has passed, Sallah appears from among the barrels. He searches the crowd for his people and starts a broken field run along some tents to avoid a group of Germans and is running flat-out when someone sticks out a leg and sends him flipping. Sallah, dust all over his face, looks angrily toward the concealed culprit. At once, a flashing white grin splits his darkened face. Indy and Marion, splotched with soot and oil, are hiding in the flap of a tent. Sallah runs into their arms and the three embrace warmly. When they break - SALLAH Holy smoke, my friends! I am so pleased you are not dead. MARION Us too. SALLAH (suddenly remembering) The Ark! They're taking it on a truck to Cairo. INDY Where is it? Sallah gestures to follow and all three run off stealthily through the mostly deserted camp. EXT. AMONG THE TENTS - DAY Sallah, Indy and Marion run into a hiding spot behind some water barrels near the Command Tent. They peek out at this activity - In the big space near the Command Tent is parked an open German staff car; inside is a

tired

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

within a fraction of an inch of the tiny hole in its sun. The edge of the sunlight moving across the miniature city is still a good two feet beyond the spot Belloq has settled on. And now that line of light is broken by the shadow of an ornate sun at the top of the staff. Indy's face reflects his concentration. And then his immense pleasure. He sees what he came for. Out of the miniature city, one small building is being lit by a tiny beam of sunlight in the center of the shadow of the metal sun. And by some trick of ancient artistry, this one building responds to the sunlight like none of the others. The golden light permeates it: it seems to glow. The building is in a direct line with Belloq's - all the Frenchman's other calculations were right - but it is a foot and a half beyond it. EXT. IN THE CAMP - DAY Sallah, sweating profusely, has finished serving the line of Breakfasting Germans and now heads back to replace the kettle and get away. HUNGRY GERMAN Water. Bring us water. INT. MAP ROOM Indy is on his knees at the miniature city, a special tape measure in his hand. Indy has the tape strung from Belloq's mistaken spot to his own correct spot. He gets his reading, leaps up and crosses to the erect staff. He pulls the headpiece off the staff and hides it in his robes. He quickly breaks the wooden staff in two and throws the pieces behind a pile of debris. Then he moves quickly to beneath the skylight. INDY (stage whisper) Sallah. (he waits, then louder) Sallah! More waiting. Nothing. Indy looks around for some alternative means of escape. The room doesn't offer any. He looks up at the skylight again. INDY (loudest) Sallah! A long pause. Then something comes down. A makeshift rope. Really just a bunch of clothing tied together - tunics, robes, pants. But what we see first and most prominently, the first section of Indy's escape rope, is a bright Nazi flag. Indy beams and climbs. EXT. ABOVE THE MAP ROOM - DAY Indy sticks his head out the skylight, sees it clear and flops his body out. Sallah, crouching behind the oil drum, immediately starts pulling in the makeshift rope. Sallah stuffs the rope in the oil drum and the two men begin waking toward some tents. HUNGRY GERMAN (O.S.) Hey, you! More water over here! Sallah glances at Indy, Then hurries back in that direction. The Hungry German focuses on Indy. HUNGRY GERMAN Why aren't you at the digs? Come here! Indy bows in wild subservience and hurries off in the opposite direction. HUNGRY GERMAN (yelling after him, irritated) No, dummkopf, I said come! EXT. BETWEEN TWO TENTS - DAY Indy hustles between the tents. Up ahead, two German Officers stop to talk, blocking his exit. He moves along the side of one of the tents until he finds an opening and slips inside. INT. THE TENT Indy finds himself in a tent set up for rather comfortable living. He has just started to cross it when he hears a loud, excited grunting. He turns toward the sound. In the corner, tied to a chair and gagged is Marion. Indy rushes to her, snatches the gag from her mouth and embraces her. They kiss, deep and long. INDY I though you were dead. MARION They were throwing me around like a rag doll. INDY They must have switched baskets. Thank god for that! Bless those bastards. Have they hurt you? MARION No. Not since I got here. They just asked about you - what you knew. The Frenchman's got the hot's for me. I've been playing that along. Oh, Indy, get me out of here. Indy pulls out a knife and then stops suddenly, thinking. MARION What's wrong? INDY (putting the knife away) I have to leave you here for a little while. I know where the Ark is. If I take you out of here they'll start combing the place for us. MARION (louder) Cut me loose! INDY Keep your voice down. MARION (screaming) I said get me out of - Indy pops the gag back in her mouth. Her eyes widen in fury and she grunts obscenities at him. INDY Look, you don't know how glad I am to see you. And I don't like doing this. But the whole thing will be shot if you don't just sit here quietly. They haven't hurt you in the last twenty-four hours, they aren't going to start now. I'll be back to get you in no time. He kisses her forehead, jumps up and hurries out of the tent. EXT. SAND DUNE OUTSIDE DIGS - DAY With the digs behind them, Indy and Sallah run up to the ridge of the dune and over the top. At the bottom of the far side, Omar's truck is parked. Omar and his men are waiting. EXT. DIFFERENT DUNE - DAY This new spot gives Indy a higher, better view of the whole scene. Indy is using a surveyor's instrument to take a reading - WHAT HE SEES Looking through the instrument, Indy gets a line from the map room through the site where the Nazis are digging in the dunes to a spot several dunes over. We focus on that virgin spot of well-hidden sand as - INDY There! EXT. INDY'S DIG - DAY Omar's truck is parked at the spot just viewed from afar. Dunes rise on either side. One of Omar's men has been posted as a lookout up on a ridge. Everybody else - Indy, Sallah, Omar, and his men - have begun digging for the Wells of the Souls. DISSOLVE TO: SAME SCENE - NIGHT They continue to dig furiously, all of them drenched in sweat. The hole has grown but this is slow, back-breaking work. INT. COMMAND TENT - TANIS DIGS - NIGHT Belloq, SHLIEMANN the ranking Nazi, and Shliemann's Aide, GOBLER, come into the tent, which is full of charts and maps, drawings of the Ark, radio equipment, liquor and food. The men have been out digging for the Well all day. They are tired, discouraged, testy. In all matters, Gobler shows his alliance with Shliemann against Belloq with small looks and body language. The Frenchman has disappointed them and he is feeling the isolation of a scapegoat. Belloq gets himself a drink as Shliemann towels off his face. BELLOQ I cautioned you about being premature with that communiqu to Berlin. Archeology is not an exact science. If does not adhere to time schedules. SHLIEMANN The Fuhrer is not a patient man. He demands constant reports and he expects progress. You led me to believe - BELLOQ Nothing. I have made no promises. I said only that it looked very favorable. Perhaps the Ark will still be found in an adjoining chamber. Based on the information in our possession, my calculations were correct. Perhaps some bit of evidence still eludes us. Perhaps GOBLER Perhaps the girl can help us. Belloq shoots him an angry look. SHLIEMANN My feeling exactly. She was in possession of the original piece for years. She may know much. (really evil) If properly motivated... BELLOQ I tell you, she knows nothing useful. SHLIEMANN I'm surprised to find you squeamish. That is not your reputation. But it needn't concern you. I have the perfect man for this kind of work. Shliemann signals Gobler, who steps outside the tent a moment, calls someone and then reappears. Belloq looks warily at the entrance. After a moment Belzig enters, reeking villainy. When his eyes find Shliemann, his superior, he snaps a crisp "Heil, Hitler!" at him, holding his palm rigid a long time, exposing a burned scar in the prefect shape of the sun medallion. EXT. INDY'S DIG - NIGHT In the eerie conjunction of moonlight and torchlight, Indy and the other men step back in awe of their discovery: there, flush with the bottom of their pit, is a heavy stone entry door to an underground chamber. Special prying tools are produced. With two men assigned to each of the two long tools, they work in unison to open the vault. They open it a foot and the other men rush in to flop the heavy door completely open. Down inside, only blackness. The men quickly prostrate themselves around the edge of the entry to look inside. Indy and Sallah each take a torch and hold them down the hole. WHAT THEY SEE The Well of the Souls is a spooky chamber thirty feet deep. The walls are covered with hieroglyphics and carvings. The roof is supported intermittently by stone pillars, the closest of which hits the roof very near the entry hole. The Well is quite large; as Indy and Sallah wave their torches, more and more of the room is revealed. Now the far end of the chamber comes into view. There is a stone altar down there and on this elaborated carved platform is a stone chest, big enough to enclose the Lost Ark and protect it from the ravages of time. This altar appears to be the only place on the floor of the Well that is not covered by a strange, dark carpet of some kind. INDY The Ark must be in that stone case. What's that gray stuff all over the floor - He breaks off realizing exactly what that carpet is. He blanches. Indiana Jones blanches. Indy drops his torch to the floor of the Well. This is answered by the most horrific HISSING imaginable. WHAT HE SEES That think dark carpet is moving. It's alive. It's thousands and thousands of deadly poisonous snakes - Egyptian asps. And the only thing that seems capable of avoiding this venomous groundcover is the altar. The snakes ebb and flow near it, but never encroach on it, as though repelled by some invisible force. Indy shakes his head and talks to himself. INDY Why snakes? Why did it have to be snakes? Anything else. After a moment of this, he stops. He gathers his energy and resolve and gets back to the task. SALLAH Asps. Very dangerous. Where Indy's torch had landed is a circle of snake-free floor. The snakes hate the flame; they stay away. INDY Lots of torches. And oil. I want a landing strip down there. INT. THE WELL OF THE SOULS Fifteen torches have been dropped to the floor of the chamber, combining to make a good-sized clear zone. Smoke begins to fill the room. Several canisters of oil have been lowered into this space. Now, a large wooden crate is lowered slowly by rope. Rope handles are attached to each end of the crate. Up at the hole, Indy gives Sallah a reassuring pat, takes a breath, and swings carefully onto a rope hanging from the hole. Despite his care, he swings a bit and his feet hit the stone pillar which is so near the entry. Surprisingly, the pillar actually moves a bit, showering a light rain of crumbled stone to the floor below. Indy lands on the floor of the Well. He looks at the altar over a sea of undulating death. He picks up an oil canister and splashes two parallel lines of oil and lights them. A path six feet wide begins to open to the altar. Behind Indy, Sallah comes quickly down the rope. We begin to INTERCUT all the action in the Well from here on with insert shots of the snakes outside the flames. Snakes and snakes. We see: snakes piled and entwined six inches deep; mother snakes laying snake eggs; snake eggs hatching little snakes; snakes cannibalizing other snakes. INT. MARION'S TENT Belloq has been talking to the still-bound Marion. He has removed her gag. He is impatient, angry, uncomfortable. Caught between two forces. BELLOQ Believe me, you made a mistake. If you would just give me something to placate them. Some bit of information. MARION I swear to you, I know nothing more. I have no loyalty to Jones. He's brought me only trouble. He wants to believe her. BELLOQ I cannot control them. Marion's frightened look shifts suddenly to the entrance of the tent. There are new arrivals there - Shliemann, Gobler and Belzig. Belzig carries a black leather case. He steps forward and smiles at Marion. BELZIG We meet again, Fraulein. EXT. INDY'S DIG - JUST BEFORE DAWN The sky is just beginning to lighten over the dunes to the east, making dangerously obvious the thin column of smoke rising from the entrance to the Well. Omar and his men are peering through the smoke down into the Well. INT. THE WELL OF THE SOULS Indy and Sallah are on the altar. Pushing together with all their strength, the heavy stone top of the protective chest begins to slide away. Indy and Sallah exchange slightly wary but very excited looks, then continue to push. As the Ark begins to be exposed, the air seems to almost vibrate, to become electrostatically charged. We hear what sounds like a low HUM. The sea of snakes around the altar draws back further from this presence. As the top of the stone chest is pushed completely off and slams down beside it, we see THE LOST ARK OF THE COVENANT. It is awesomely beautiful, breathtaking. 4 feet long, 2.5 feet wide and 2.5 feet high. It's height, however, is increased by the two sculptured gold angels mounted facing each other on the top. Though the body of the Ark is acacia wood, it has been overlaid with gold. An elaborate gold crown surrounds the top edge and gold carrying rings are attached to each corner. Sallah is mesmerized by the sight. His hand starts to reach out and touch one of the angels, but Indy grabs it. INDY Don't touch it! Never touch it! The wooden crate stands open next to the stone chest. Now Indy extracts the wooden poles from its rings and begins fitting them through the rings in the Ark. This takes some maneuvering by the two men, but soon they are able to lift the Ark clear of the stone chest and into the wooden crate. They extract the poles, fasten the top of the crate and stick the poles through the rings of the wooden crate. They start back toward the space under the hole. The fire strips have begun to dwindle, as have some of the torches. The snakes move slowly in toward the clear spaces. Indy and Sallah eye them nervously as they hurry along with their heavy load. Under the hole, they hurriedly attach ropes to the wooden crate and it is pulled up. Indy's concentration is on the tide of snakes. INDY Hurry up! Why did it have to be snakes? Sallah takes the next rope and climbs quickly out of the Well. Indy has picked up a torch and now throws it at a pool of snakes who are too close for his comfort. He turns and takes hold of the exit rope. He gives it a first tug and it falls down into the Well, landing partly beyond the ring of fire where is instantly disappears in a tangle of angry, hissing asps. Indy looks up at the hole. INDY What the - Smiling down at him from the perimeter of the entry are Belloq, Shliemann and Gobler. BELLOQ Why, Dr. Jones, whatever are you doing in such a nasty place? Belloq and the Germans laugh. INDY Why don't you fellows come down here? I'll show you. BELLOQ No thank you, my friend. (he glances around him) I think we are all very comfortable up here. EXT. INDY'S DIG - DAWN Sunlight is flooding this tableau: Sallah, Omar and his men are being held at bay by ten armed Nazis. The wooden crate sits safely nearby. Belzig and another Nazi have the gagged Marion held in their rough grasp. BELLOQ (down to Indy) After all these years, it is most considerate of you to aid me in this way. As Belloq speaks, Shliemann exchanges a look with Belzig. Belzig smiles and takes the gag from Marion's mouth. INT. WELLS OF THE SOULS Shliemann smiles down at Indy. SHLIEMANN I'm afraid we must be going now, Dr. Jones. Our prize is awaited in Berlin. But I do not wish to leave you down in that awful place... (he give a sign) ...all alone. Belzig and the Nazi move Marion to the hole and, to Belloq's surprise, push her in. Marion falls thirty feet screaming. Indy drops his torch, braces, and catches her! Her weight knocks him to the ground, almost into the snakes. She looks around at the snakes, clinging to him more desperately as he struggles to his feet trying to unload her. MARION Don't put me down! Up at the hole, there's plenty of dissension. BELLOQ The girl was mine! SHLIEMANN She is of no use to us. Only our mission for the Fuhrer matters. Shliemann glances meaningfully around at the other Nazis. SHLIEMANN I wonder sometimes, Monsieur, if you have that clearly in mind. Belloq feels how much he is the outsider, his own vulnerability. He backs down with the wisdom of survival. He turns to look down at Indy and Marion. His manner is gallant. BELLOQ Goodbye, mademoiselle. (a pause, then with respect) Indiana Jones... adieu! Belloq and the others step back from the hole and unseen Nazis slam the heavy stone door into place. Marion screams. Her scream is accompanied by - A huge WHOOSH! as air is sucked out and the chamber is sealed. Half of the torches still burning go out with the sound. The remaining torches continue to extinguish at punctuating intervals throughout the following action and the snakes immediately flood into the newly-darkened spaces. Indy puts Marion down and snatches up two burning torches. He hands one to Marion. INDY Don't panic. There's plenty of time for that later. Wave that at anything that slithers. Indy holds his torch out like a lantern and begins a slow O- turn, his eyes peering into the gloom, examining every inch of wall and ceiling. MARION What are you doing? INDY Just watch the floor. Reminded of the encroaching snakes, Marion waves her torch at the nearest edge of their circle. She looks faint. Indy continues his slow turn. MARION Whatever you're doing, do it faster. INDY (he spots something) There! His head whips around, looking at the pillars around the room. He sees what he wants. He grabs one of the oil canisters, looks back to the spot on the wall he's chosen and splashes oil on the floor in that direction, then lights it. A path opens toward that wall. INDY Come on! Marion is frozen in her spot. Indy drags her after him. He splashes oil the rest of the way to the wall. It lights and Indy pulls Marion over to the wall. He pours the remaining oil in a circle around them, creating a safe zone there. INDY Stay here! MARION (grabbing him) Where are you going? INDY I'll be back in a minute. We're going through this wall. Marion looks at the wall, which looks like all the rest to her. She thinks he's crazy. INDY Just keep your eyes open and get ready to run. No matter what happens to me. MARION (panicked) What do you mean? Too late. Indy runs back through the path of flames to the center of the room. Snakes strike as his flying heels. Indy reaches the base of the pillar which he touched briefly on his original descent. He uses his torch to clear away the scattered snakes climbing on it, then pulls out his whip. He draws it back, then wraps is solidly around the pillar 15 feet up. With the torch in his mouth, he begins climbing the pillar. It moves ominously under his weight. The last two torches still burning on the floor go out. Now the only light in the chamber is provided by the torches held by Indy and Marion and the dwindling oil flames. Snakes move in and surround the base of Indy's pillar. The path between Marion and the center of the room is overrun. The circle of flame around Marion is dying down. She looks beyond it with terror-widened eyes, then up through the increasing smoke at the distant Indy. Near the top of the pillar, Indy's hands strain along his taut whip, which he has moves higher. A snake slithers into view there, inches from Indy's straining face. Indy turns his head so the torch in his mouth can burn it. The snake falls from the pillar. Indy's torch is dwindling. Indy works his body around so that he is on the side of the pillar away from Marion. The pillar moves, showering dust. Indy looks at the chamber wall five feet away, takes a breath and swings his legs up against it. He is now braced between pillar and wall. MARION (O.S.) (screaming) Where are you?! Snakes are moving in force up the pillar toward Indy's dwindling torch. Indy grasps the pillar for dear life, grimaces with exertion and pushes against the wall with all he's got. The pillar begins to break loose of the ceiling, then stops. Indy's eyes are on the torch. It is just a spot of flame now. Snakes are sliding up toward his hands. Indy again pushes against the wall and the torch falls out of his mouth. The pillar goes! In the dim light, we see it fall like a tree directly at Marion. Indy rides it down. The top hits the wall three feet from a cringing Marion and smashes through to a black chamber beyond. Indy flies off into the darkness. Gone. Marion clutches her torch at the black hole. MARION Indy! Where are you?! Please Lord! There is a moment that seems an eternity, then Indy appears like an apparition out of the void. INDY Come on! He grabs her and helps her over the remains of the wall into - INT. THE CATACOMBS The winding string of connected chambers is revealed to them only a few feet at a time as their torch lights the way. MARION The snakes... are they here? INDY I guess not. I think I'd be dead. MARION Do you know where you're going? INDY Absolutely. MARION Thank god. Where? INDY Out. They round a corner and flush a covey of bats. Marion screams. INDY Don't do that. It scares me. Marion gives him a look. They round a corner and begin a walk through a maze of chambers that present for their inspection: moldering mummies and stacked sarcophagi; a room decorated with a thousand human skulls; a wall crawling with huge scarabaeid beetles. Marion is quite naturally a nervous wreck; she jumps when Indy grabs her suddenly and points. INDY Look! WHAT THEY SEE There, coming through the crack in the corner of the next chamber, is white blessed sunlight. EXT. THE TANIS DIGS - NEAR AIRSTRIP - DAY Indy and Marion peek out into the light from the shadows of an abandoned excavation. Before them is the improvised airstrip serving the digs: a crude runway, a tent supply depot, two fuel tank trucks. Down by the fuel trucks a German Mechanic is looking skyward. Now Indy and Marion look there too, drawn by the roaring sound of - A Flying Wing, which is circling over the digs in preparation to landing. Now a new figure approaches the German Mechanic. It is Gobler; he yells to the mechanic, indicating the plane. GOBLER Get is gassed immediately! It has an important cargo to take out! In the distance, the Flying Wing lands and rolls toward the men. Gobler spins and heads back toward the main camp, which is hidden from view by a rise. Indy and Marion watch him go. INDY When the Ark gets loaded, we're already going to be on that plane. The Flying Wing rolls up into the space near the fuel trucks. The German Mechanic puts blue blocks in front of the tires as the engines continue to roar. Indy and Marion run in a crouch to a hiding spot closer to the plane, near the supply tent. Suddenly, a Second German Mechanic appears behind them. He is as surprised as they are, but recovers quickly and swings a big monkey wrench at Indy. Indy grabs the swinging arm and the two men tumble out into the open, wrestling. Marion remains hidden, moving fast among the crates. The first German Mechanic, who is just pulling the fuel hose from the tank truck to the plane, sees the combatants and runs to help his countryman. He is almost upon them when Indy puts the Second German away with a devastating left - right - left combination. He turns to find the first German Mechanic flying at him. The roll toward the rear of the Flying Wing and its lethally spinning reversed propellers. In the cockpit of the Flying Wing, the Pilot has been fiddling with his gauges just prior to shutting off his engines. Now he notices the fight going on outside. The fistfight between Indy and the German Mechanic has taken on a new stomach-tightening dimension. The men are fighting and flailing in and out between the spinning props at the back of the plane's wings. Each man comes within inches of becoming instant mincemeat. The Pilot slides away the top of his cockpit and stands up. He pulls a Luger from his side and points it, waiting for a clear shot at Indy. The German Mechanic kicks Indy away from him and the Pilot aims his pistol. Suddenly, Marion appears behind the Pilot, standing on the opposite wing, and bashes him over the head with one of the blue blocks that was holding the tires. The Pilot drops down into the cockpit, his body falling on the throttle. The engines roar louder, revving up. The plane begins to roll, rotating around its one still- blocked set of tires. Marion grabs onto the cockpit to keep from slipping into the props. She bends into the cockpit, trying to pull the Pilot's body off the throttle. No luck. She grimaces and climbs inside. Her shoulder bumps the top of the cockpit; it slides tightly shut above her. Under the moving wing, Indy delivers a knockout rightcross to the German Mechanic which sends him staggering back toward a roaring propeller. Indy's grimace registers the man's demise and a fine mist of blood wafts toward him. Indy spins toward the sound of crumpling metal and sees - The other prop of the Flying Wing slice into a tank truck. The airplane fuel inside floods out onto the pavement, surrounding the plane. Indy backpedals away from the plane, his eyes searching the scene for Marion. Suddenly, he is shocked to see her in the cockpit. He runs toward her, skidding through the gasoline. INDY Get out! Get out! Marion is struggling with the top of the cockpit. She can't budge it. She's trapped. EXT. THE COMMAND TENT - DAY Three Armed Nazis stand guard around the wooden crate containing the Ark. It is sitting near the flopped-open entrance to the Command Tent and there is furious activity going on here. Belloq, Shliemann, Gobler, Belzig and assorted Aides are packing up all the papers and personal items in preparation for a hasty departure. A large crowd of Arab Diggers is milling about among the tents. They all want to get a look at the Ark. Sallah is among them. All at once, there is a earthshaking explosion. Al eyes turn toward the rise that hides the airstrip. A huge fireball floats into view over there. Everyone starts running toward it. Shliemann yells at Belzig and the Armed Nazis. SHLIEMANN Stay with the Ark! EXT. THE RISE ABOVE AIRSTRIP - DAY Almost all the Arabs and Germans in the digs have congregated here and are staring at the burning remains of the Flying Wing. Belloq and Shliemann arrive just as the second fuel truck blows up. The concussion knocks many of the observers flat. Belloq, Shliemann and Gobler watch the scene in alarm. SHLIEMANN Sabotage! BELLOQ We must get the Ark away from this place immediately! SHLIEMANN (to Gobler) Have it put on the truck. We'll fly out of Cairo. Gobler snaps his heels, turns to go. SHLIEMANN And Gobler - (Gobler stops) I want plenty of protection. Gobler nods and runs off. Shliemann heads back toward camp. Belloq hesitates a long moment, studying the burning wreckage with an odd, suspicious look. Finally, he turns and leaves, passing a nearby stack of barrels. When he has passed, Sallah appears from among the barrels. He searches the crowd for his people and starts a broken field run along some tents to avoid a group of Germans and is running flat-out when someone sticks out a leg and sends him flipping. Sallah, dust all over his face, looks angrily toward the concealed culprit. At once, a flashing white grin splits his darkened face. Indy and Marion, splotched with soot and oil, are hiding in the flap of a tent. Sallah runs into their arms and the three embrace warmly. When they break - SALLAH Holy smoke, my friends! I am so pleased you are not dead. MARION Us too. SALLAH (suddenly remembering) The Ark! They're taking it on a truck to Cairo. INDY Where is it? Sallah gestures to follow and all three run off stealthily through the mostly deserted camp. EXT. AMONG THE TENTS - DAY Sallah, Indy and Marion run into a hiding spot behind some water barrels near the Command Tent. They peek out at this activity - In the big space near the Command Tent is parked an open German staff car; inside is a

dressed

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

within a fraction of an inch of the tiny hole in its sun. The edge of the sunlight moving across the miniature city is still a good two feet beyond the spot Belloq has settled on. And now that line of light is broken by the shadow of an ornate sun at the top of the staff. Indy's face reflects his concentration. And then his immense pleasure. He sees what he came for. Out of the miniature city, one small building is being lit by a tiny beam of sunlight in the center of the shadow of the metal sun. And by some trick of ancient artistry, this one building responds to the sunlight like none of the others. The golden light permeates it: it seems to glow. The building is in a direct line with Belloq's - all the Frenchman's other calculations were right - but it is a foot and a half beyond it. EXT. IN THE CAMP - DAY Sallah, sweating profusely, has finished serving the line of Breakfasting Germans and now heads back to replace the kettle and get away. HUNGRY GERMAN Water. Bring us water. INT. MAP ROOM Indy is on his knees at the miniature city, a special tape measure in his hand. Indy has the tape strung from Belloq's mistaken spot to his own correct spot. He gets his reading, leaps up and crosses to the erect staff. He pulls the headpiece off the staff and hides it in his robes. He quickly breaks the wooden staff in two and throws the pieces behind a pile of debris. Then he moves quickly to beneath the skylight. INDY (stage whisper) Sallah. (he waits, then louder) Sallah! More waiting. Nothing. Indy looks around for some alternative means of escape. The room doesn't offer any. He looks up at the skylight again. INDY (loudest) Sallah! A long pause. Then something comes down. A makeshift rope. Really just a bunch of clothing tied together - tunics, robes, pants. But what we see first and most prominently, the first section of Indy's escape rope, is a bright Nazi flag. Indy beams and climbs. EXT. ABOVE THE MAP ROOM - DAY Indy sticks his head out the skylight, sees it clear and flops his body out. Sallah, crouching behind the oil drum, immediately starts pulling in the makeshift rope. Sallah stuffs the rope in the oil drum and the two men begin waking toward some tents. HUNGRY GERMAN (O.S.) Hey, you! More water over here! Sallah glances at Indy, Then hurries back in that direction. The Hungry German focuses on Indy. HUNGRY GERMAN Why aren't you at the digs? Come here! Indy bows in wild subservience and hurries off in the opposite direction. HUNGRY GERMAN (yelling after him, irritated) No, dummkopf, I said come! EXT. BETWEEN TWO TENTS - DAY Indy hustles between the tents. Up ahead, two German Officers stop to talk, blocking his exit. He moves along the side of one of the tents until he finds an opening and slips inside. INT. THE TENT Indy finds himself in a tent set up for rather comfortable living. He has just started to cross it when he hears a loud, excited grunting. He turns toward the sound. In the corner, tied to a chair and gagged is Marion. Indy rushes to her, snatches the gag from her mouth and embraces her. They kiss, deep and long. INDY I though you were dead. MARION They were throwing me around like a rag doll. INDY They must have switched baskets. Thank god for that! Bless those bastards. Have they hurt you? MARION No. Not since I got here. They just asked about you - what you knew. The Frenchman's got the hot's for me. I've been playing that along. Oh, Indy, get me out of here. Indy pulls out a knife and then stops suddenly, thinking. MARION What's wrong? INDY (putting the knife away) I have to leave you here for a little while. I know where the Ark is. If I take you out of here they'll start combing the place for us. MARION (louder) Cut me loose! INDY Keep your voice down. MARION (screaming) I said get me out of - Indy pops the gag back in her mouth. Her eyes widen in fury and she grunts obscenities at him. INDY Look, you don't know how glad I am to see you. And I don't like doing this. But the whole thing will be shot if you don't just sit here quietly. They haven't hurt you in the last twenty-four hours, they aren't going to start now. I'll be back to get you in no time. He kisses her forehead, jumps up and hurries out of the tent. EXT. SAND DUNE OUTSIDE DIGS - DAY With the digs behind them, Indy and Sallah run up to the ridge of the dune and over the top. At the bottom of the far side, Omar's truck is parked. Omar and his men are waiting. EXT. DIFFERENT DUNE - DAY This new spot gives Indy a higher, better view of the whole scene. Indy is using a surveyor's instrument to take a reading - WHAT HE SEES Looking through the instrument, Indy gets a line from the map room through the site where the Nazis are digging in the dunes to a spot several dunes over. We focus on that virgin spot of well-hidden sand as - INDY There! EXT. INDY'S DIG - DAY Omar's truck is parked at the spot just viewed from afar. Dunes rise on either side. One of Omar's men has been posted as a lookout up on a ridge. Everybody else - Indy, Sallah, Omar, and his men - have begun digging for the Wells of the Souls. DISSOLVE TO: SAME SCENE - NIGHT They continue to dig furiously, all of them drenched in sweat. The hole has grown but this is slow, back-breaking work. INT. COMMAND TENT - TANIS DIGS - NIGHT Belloq, SHLIEMANN the ranking Nazi, and Shliemann's Aide, GOBLER, come into the tent, which is full of charts and maps, drawings of the Ark, radio equipment, liquor and food. The men have been out digging for the Well all day. They are tired, discouraged, testy. In all matters, Gobler shows his alliance with Shliemann against Belloq with small looks and body language. The Frenchman has disappointed them and he is feeling the isolation of a scapegoat. Belloq gets himself a drink as Shliemann towels off his face. BELLOQ I cautioned you about being premature with that communiqu to Berlin. Archeology is not an exact science. If does not adhere to time schedules. SHLIEMANN The Fuhrer is not a patient man. He demands constant reports and he expects progress. You led me to believe - BELLOQ Nothing. I have made no promises. I said only that it looked very favorable. Perhaps the Ark will still be found in an adjoining chamber. Based on the information in our possession, my calculations were correct. Perhaps some bit of evidence still eludes us. Perhaps GOBLER Perhaps the girl can help us. Belloq shoots him an angry look. SHLIEMANN My feeling exactly. She was in possession of the original piece for years. She may know much. (really evil) If properly motivated... BELLOQ I tell you, she knows nothing useful. SHLIEMANN I'm surprised to find you squeamish. That is not your reputation. But it needn't concern you. I have the perfect man for this kind of work. Shliemann signals Gobler, who steps outside the tent a moment, calls someone and then reappears. Belloq looks warily at the entrance. After a moment Belzig enters, reeking villainy. When his eyes find Shliemann, his superior, he snaps a crisp "Heil, Hitler!" at him, holding his palm rigid a long time, exposing a burned scar in the prefect shape of the sun medallion. EXT. INDY'S DIG - NIGHT In the eerie conjunction of moonlight and torchlight, Indy and the other men step back in awe of their discovery: there, flush with the bottom of their pit, is a heavy stone entry door to an underground chamber. Special prying tools are produced. With two men assigned to each of the two long tools, they work in unison to open the vault. They open it a foot and the other men rush in to flop the heavy door completely open. Down inside, only blackness. The men quickly prostrate themselves around the edge of the entry to look inside. Indy and Sallah each take a torch and hold them down the hole. WHAT THEY SEE The Well of the Souls is a spooky chamber thirty feet deep. The walls are covered with hieroglyphics and carvings. The roof is supported intermittently by stone pillars, the closest of which hits the roof very near the entry hole. The Well is quite large; as Indy and Sallah wave their torches, more and more of the room is revealed. Now the far end of the chamber comes into view. There is a stone altar down there and on this elaborated carved platform is a stone chest, big enough to enclose the Lost Ark and protect it from the ravages of time. This altar appears to be the only place on the floor of the Well that is not covered by a strange, dark carpet of some kind. INDY The Ark must be in that stone case. What's that gray stuff all over the floor - He breaks off realizing exactly what that carpet is. He blanches. Indiana Jones blanches. Indy drops his torch to the floor of the Well. This is answered by the most horrific HISSING imaginable. WHAT HE SEES That think dark carpet is moving. It's alive. It's thousands and thousands of deadly poisonous snakes - Egyptian asps. And the only thing that seems capable of avoiding this venomous groundcover is the altar. The snakes ebb and flow near it, but never encroach on it, as though repelled by some invisible force. Indy shakes his head and talks to himself. INDY Why snakes? Why did it have to be snakes? Anything else. After a moment of this, he stops. He gathers his energy and resolve and gets back to the task. SALLAH Asps. Very dangerous. Where Indy's torch had landed is a circle of snake-free floor. The snakes hate the flame; they stay away. INDY Lots of torches. And oil. I want a landing strip down there. INT. THE WELL OF THE SOULS Fifteen torches have been dropped to the floor of the chamber, combining to make a good-sized clear zone. Smoke begins to fill the room. Several canisters of oil have been lowered into this space. Now, a large wooden crate is lowered slowly by rope. Rope handles are attached to each end of the crate. Up at the hole, Indy gives Sallah a reassuring pat, takes a breath, and swings carefully onto a rope hanging from the hole. Despite his care, he swings a bit and his feet hit the stone pillar which is so near the entry. Surprisingly, the pillar actually moves a bit, showering a light rain of crumbled stone to the floor below. Indy lands on the floor of the Well. He looks at the altar over a sea of undulating death. He picks up an oil canister and splashes two parallel lines of oil and lights them. A path six feet wide begins to open to the altar. Behind Indy, Sallah comes quickly down the rope. We begin to INTERCUT all the action in the Well from here on with insert shots of the snakes outside the flames. Snakes and snakes. We see: snakes piled and entwined six inches deep; mother snakes laying snake eggs; snake eggs hatching little snakes; snakes cannibalizing other snakes. INT. MARION'S TENT Belloq has been talking to the still-bound Marion. He has removed her gag. He is impatient, angry, uncomfortable. Caught between two forces. BELLOQ Believe me, you made a mistake. If you would just give me something to placate them. Some bit of information. MARION I swear to you, I know nothing more. I have no loyalty to Jones. He's brought me only trouble. He wants to believe her. BELLOQ I cannot control them. Marion's frightened look shifts suddenly to the entrance of the tent. There are new arrivals there - Shliemann, Gobler and Belzig. Belzig carries a black leather case. He steps forward and smiles at Marion. BELZIG We meet again, Fraulein. EXT. INDY'S DIG - JUST BEFORE DAWN The sky is just beginning to lighten over the dunes to the east, making dangerously obvious the thin column of smoke rising from the entrance to the Well. Omar and his men are peering through the smoke down into the Well. INT. THE WELL OF THE SOULS Indy and Sallah are on the altar. Pushing together with all their strength, the heavy stone top of the protective chest begins to slide away. Indy and Sallah exchange slightly wary but very excited looks, then continue to push. As the Ark begins to be exposed, the air seems to almost vibrate, to become electrostatically charged. We hear what sounds like a low HUM. The sea of snakes around the altar draws back further from this presence. As the top of the stone chest is pushed completely off and slams down beside it, we see THE LOST ARK OF THE COVENANT. It is awesomely beautiful, breathtaking. 4 feet long, 2.5 feet wide and 2.5 feet high. It's height, however, is increased by the two sculptured gold angels mounted facing each other on the top. Though the body of the Ark is acacia wood, it has been overlaid with gold. An elaborate gold crown surrounds the top edge and gold carrying rings are attached to each corner. Sallah is mesmerized by the sight. His hand starts to reach out and touch one of the angels, but Indy grabs it. INDY Don't touch it! Never touch it! The wooden crate stands open next to the stone chest. Now Indy extracts the wooden poles from its rings and begins fitting them through the rings in the Ark. This takes some maneuvering by the two men, but soon they are able to lift the Ark clear of the stone chest and into the wooden crate. They extract the poles, fasten the top of the crate and stick the poles through the rings of the wooden crate. They start back toward the space under the hole. The fire strips have begun to dwindle, as have some of the torches. The snakes move slowly in toward the clear spaces. Indy and Sallah eye them nervously as they hurry along with their heavy load. Under the hole, they hurriedly attach ropes to the wooden crate and it is pulled up. Indy's concentration is on the tide of snakes. INDY Hurry up! Why did it have to be snakes? Sallah takes the next rope and climbs quickly out of the Well. Indy has picked up a torch and now throws it at a pool of snakes who are too close for his comfort. He turns and takes hold of the exit rope. He gives it a first tug and it falls down into the Well, landing partly beyond the ring of fire where is instantly disappears in a tangle of angry, hissing asps. Indy looks up at the hole. INDY What the - Smiling down at him from the perimeter of the entry are Belloq, Shliemann and Gobler. BELLOQ Why, Dr. Jones, whatever are you doing in such a nasty place? Belloq and the Germans laugh. INDY Why don't you fellows come down here? I'll show you. BELLOQ No thank you, my friend. (he glances around him) I think we are all very comfortable up here. EXT. INDY'S DIG - DAWN Sunlight is flooding this tableau: Sallah, Omar and his men are being held at bay by ten armed Nazis. The wooden crate sits safely nearby. Belzig and another Nazi have the gagged Marion held in their rough grasp. BELLOQ (down to Indy) After all these years, it is most considerate of you to aid me in this way. As Belloq speaks, Shliemann exchanges a look with Belzig. Belzig smiles and takes the gag from Marion's mouth. INT. WELLS OF THE SOULS Shliemann smiles down at Indy. SHLIEMANN I'm afraid we must be going now, Dr. Jones. Our prize is awaited in Berlin. But I do not wish to leave you down in that awful place... (he give a sign) ...all alone. Belzig and the Nazi move Marion to the hole and, to Belloq's surprise, push her in. Marion falls thirty feet screaming. Indy drops his torch, braces, and catches her! Her weight knocks him to the ground, almost into the snakes. She looks around at the snakes, clinging to him more desperately as he struggles to his feet trying to unload her. MARION Don't put me down! Up at the hole, there's plenty of dissension. BELLOQ The girl was mine! SHLIEMANN She is of no use to us. Only our mission for the Fuhrer matters. Shliemann glances meaningfully around at the other Nazis. SHLIEMANN I wonder sometimes, Monsieur, if you have that clearly in mind. Belloq feels how much he is the outsider, his own vulnerability. He backs down with the wisdom of survival. He turns to look down at Indy and Marion. His manner is gallant. BELLOQ Goodbye, mademoiselle. (a pause, then with respect) Indiana Jones... adieu! Belloq and the others step back from the hole and unseen Nazis slam the heavy stone door into place. Marion screams. Her scream is accompanied by - A huge WHOOSH! as air is sucked out and the chamber is sealed. Half of the torches still burning go out with the sound. The remaining torches continue to extinguish at punctuating intervals throughout the following action and the snakes immediately flood into the newly-darkened spaces. Indy puts Marion down and snatches up two burning torches. He hands one to Marion. INDY Don't panic. There's plenty of time for that later. Wave that at anything that slithers. Indy holds his torch out like a lantern and begins a slow O- turn, his eyes peering into the gloom, examining every inch of wall and ceiling. MARION What are you doing? INDY Just watch the floor. Reminded of the encroaching snakes, Marion waves her torch at the nearest edge of their circle. She looks faint. Indy continues his slow turn. MARION Whatever you're doing, do it faster. INDY (he spots something) There! His head whips around, looking at the pillars around the room. He sees what he wants. He grabs one of the oil canisters, looks back to the spot on the wall he's chosen and splashes oil on the floor in that direction, then lights it. A path opens toward that wall. INDY Come on! Marion is frozen in her spot. Indy drags her after him. He splashes oil the rest of the way to the wall. It lights and Indy pulls Marion over to the wall. He pours the remaining oil in a circle around them, creating a safe zone there. INDY Stay here! MARION (grabbing him) Where are you going? INDY I'll be back in a minute. We're going through this wall. Marion looks at the wall, which looks like all the rest to her. She thinks he's crazy. INDY Just keep your eyes open and get ready to run. No matter what happens to me. MARION (panicked) What do you mean? Too late. Indy runs back through the path of flames to the center of the room. Snakes strike as his flying heels. Indy reaches the base of the pillar which he touched briefly on his original descent. He uses his torch to clear away the scattered snakes climbing on it, then pulls out his whip. He draws it back, then wraps is solidly around the pillar 15 feet up. With the torch in his mouth, he begins climbing the pillar. It moves ominously under his weight. The last two torches still burning on the floor go out. Now the only light in the chamber is provided by the torches held by Indy and Marion and the dwindling oil flames. Snakes move in and surround the base of Indy's pillar. The path between Marion and the center of the room is overrun. The circle of flame around Marion is dying down. She looks beyond it with terror-widened eyes, then up through the increasing smoke at the distant Indy. Near the top of the pillar, Indy's hands strain along his taut whip, which he has moves higher. A snake slithers into view there, inches from Indy's straining face. Indy turns his head so the torch in his mouth can burn it. The snake falls from the pillar. Indy's torch is dwindling. Indy works his body around so that he is on the side of the pillar away from Marion. The pillar moves, showering dust. Indy looks at the chamber wall five feet away, takes a breath and swings his legs up against it. He is now braced between pillar and wall. MARION (O.S.) (screaming) Where are you?! Snakes are moving in force up the pillar toward Indy's dwindling torch. Indy grasps the pillar for dear life, grimaces with exertion and pushes against the wall with all he's got. The pillar begins to break loose of the ceiling, then stops. Indy's eyes are on the torch. It is just a spot of flame now. Snakes are sliding up toward his hands. Indy again pushes against the wall and the torch falls out of his mouth. The pillar goes! In the dim light, we see it fall like a tree directly at Marion. Indy rides it down. The top hits the wall three feet from a cringing Marion and smashes through to a black chamber beyond. Indy flies off into the darkness. Gone. Marion clutches her torch at the black hole. MARION Indy! Where are you?! Please Lord! There is a moment that seems an eternity, then Indy appears like an apparition out of the void. INDY Come on! He grabs her and helps her over the remains of the wall into - INT. THE CATACOMBS The winding string of connected chambers is revealed to them only a few feet at a time as their torch lights the way. MARION The snakes... are they here? INDY I guess not. I think I'd be dead. MARION Do you know where you're going? INDY Absolutely. MARION Thank god. Where? INDY Out. They round a corner and flush a covey of bats. Marion screams. INDY Don't do that. It scares me. Marion gives him a look. They round a corner and begin a walk through a maze of chambers that present for their inspection: moldering mummies and stacked sarcophagi; a room decorated with a thousand human skulls; a wall crawling with huge scarabaeid beetles. Marion is quite naturally a nervous wreck; she jumps when Indy grabs her suddenly and points. INDY Look! WHAT THEY SEE There, coming through the crack in the corner of the next chamber, is white blessed sunlight. EXT. THE TANIS DIGS - NEAR AIRSTRIP - DAY Indy and Marion peek out into the light from the shadows of an abandoned excavation. Before them is the improvised airstrip serving the digs: a crude runway, a tent supply depot, two fuel tank trucks. Down by the fuel trucks a German Mechanic is looking skyward. Now Indy and Marion look there too, drawn by the roaring sound of - A Flying Wing, which is circling over the digs in preparation to landing. Now a new figure approaches the German Mechanic. It is Gobler; he yells to the mechanic, indicating the plane. GOBLER Get is gassed immediately! It has an important cargo to take out! In the distance, the Flying Wing lands and rolls toward the men. Gobler spins and heads back toward the main camp, which is hidden from view by a rise. Indy and Marion watch him go. INDY When the Ark gets loaded, we're already going to be on that plane. The Flying Wing rolls up into the space near the fuel trucks. The German Mechanic puts blue blocks in front of the tires as the engines continue to roar. Indy and Marion run in a crouch to a hiding spot closer to the plane, near the supply tent. Suddenly, a Second German Mechanic appears behind them. He is as surprised as they are, but recovers quickly and swings a big monkey wrench at Indy. Indy grabs the swinging arm and the two men tumble out into the open, wrestling. Marion remains hidden, moving fast among the crates. The first German Mechanic, who is just pulling the fuel hose from the tank truck to the plane, sees the combatants and runs to help his countryman. He is almost upon them when Indy puts the Second German away with a devastating left - right - left combination. He turns to find the first German Mechanic flying at him. The roll toward the rear of the Flying Wing and its lethally spinning reversed propellers. In the cockpit of the Flying Wing, the Pilot has been fiddling with his gauges just prior to shutting off his engines. Now he notices the fight going on outside. The fistfight between Indy and the German Mechanic has taken on a new stomach-tightening dimension. The men are fighting and flailing in and out between the spinning props at the back of the plane's wings. Each man comes within inches of becoming instant mincemeat. The Pilot slides away the top of his cockpit and stands up. He pulls a Luger from his side and points it, waiting for a clear shot at Indy. The German Mechanic kicks Indy away from him and the Pilot aims his pistol. Suddenly, Marion appears behind the Pilot, standing on the opposite wing, and bashes him over the head with one of the blue blocks that was holding the tires. The Pilot drops down into the cockpit, his body falling on the throttle. The engines roar louder, revving up. The plane begins to roll, rotating around its one still- blocked set of tires. Marion grabs onto the cockpit to keep from slipping into the props. She bends into the cockpit, trying to pull the Pilot's body off the throttle. No luck. She grimaces and climbs inside. Her shoulder bumps the top of the cockpit; it slides tightly shut above her. Under the moving wing, Indy delivers a knockout rightcross to the German Mechanic which sends him staggering back toward a roaring propeller. Indy's grimace registers the man's demise and a fine mist of blood wafts toward him. Indy spins toward the sound of crumpling metal and sees - The other prop of the Flying Wing slice into a tank truck. The airplane fuel inside floods out onto the pavement, surrounding the plane. Indy backpedals away from the plane, his eyes searching the scene for Marion. Suddenly, he is shocked to see her in the cockpit. He runs toward her, skidding through the gasoline. INDY Get out! Get out! Marion is struggling with the top of the cockpit. She can't budge it. She's trapped. EXT. THE COMMAND TENT - DAY Three Armed Nazis stand guard around the wooden crate containing the Ark. It is sitting near the flopped-open entrance to the Command Tent and there is furious activity going on here. Belloq, Shliemann, Gobler, Belzig and assorted Aides are packing up all the papers and personal items in preparation for a hasty departure. A large crowd of Arab Diggers is milling about among the tents. They all want to get a look at the Ark. Sallah is among them. All at once, there is a earthshaking explosion. Al eyes turn toward the rise that hides the airstrip. A huge fireball floats into view over there. Everyone starts running toward it. Shliemann yells at Belzig and the Armed Nazis. SHLIEMANN Stay with the Ark! EXT. THE RISE ABOVE AIRSTRIP - DAY Almost all the Arabs and Germans in the digs have congregated here and are staring at the burning remains of the Flying Wing. Belloq and Shliemann arrive just as the second fuel truck blows up. The concussion knocks many of the observers flat. Belloq, Shliemann and Gobler watch the scene in alarm. SHLIEMANN Sabotage! BELLOQ We must get the Ark away from this place immediately! SHLIEMANN (to Gobler) Have it put on the truck. We'll fly out of Cairo. Gobler snaps his heels, turns to go. SHLIEMANN And Gobler - (Gobler stops) I want plenty of protection. Gobler nods and runs off. Shliemann heads back toward camp. Belloq hesitates a long moment, studying the burning wreckage with an odd, suspicious look. Finally, he turns and leaves, passing a nearby stack of barrels. When he has passed, Sallah appears from among the barrels. He searches the crowd for his people and starts a broken field run along some tents to avoid a group of Germans and is running flat-out when someone sticks out a leg and sends him flipping. Sallah, dust all over his face, looks angrily toward the concealed culprit. At once, a flashing white grin splits his darkened face. Indy and Marion, splotched with soot and oil, are hiding in the flap of a tent. Sallah runs into their arms and the three embrace warmly. When they break - SALLAH Holy smoke, my friends! I am so pleased you are not dead. MARION Us too. SALLAH (suddenly remembering) The Ark! They're taking it on a truck to Cairo. INDY Where is it? Sallah gestures to follow and all three run off stealthily through the mostly deserted camp. EXT. AMONG THE TENTS - DAY Sallah, Indy and Marion run into a hiding spot behind some water barrels near the Command Tent. They peek out at this activity - In the big space near the Command Tent is parked an open German staff car; inside is a

parked

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

within a fraction of an inch of the tiny hole in its sun. The edge of the sunlight moving across the miniature city is still a good two feet beyond the spot Belloq has settled on. And now that line of light is broken by the shadow of an ornate sun at the top of the staff. Indy's face reflects his concentration. And then his immense pleasure. He sees what he came for. Out of the miniature city, one small building is being lit by a tiny beam of sunlight in the center of the shadow of the metal sun. And by some trick of ancient artistry, this one building responds to the sunlight like none of the others. The golden light permeates it: it seems to glow. The building is in a direct line with Belloq's - all the Frenchman's other calculations were right - but it is a foot and a half beyond it. EXT. IN THE CAMP - DAY Sallah, sweating profusely, has finished serving the line of Breakfasting Germans and now heads back to replace the kettle and get away. HUNGRY GERMAN Water. Bring us water. INT. MAP ROOM Indy is on his knees at the miniature city, a special tape measure in his hand. Indy has the tape strung from Belloq's mistaken spot to his own correct spot. He gets his reading, leaps up and crosses to the erect staff. He pulls the headpiece off the staff and hides it in his robes. He quickly breaks the wooden staff in two and throws the pieces behind a pile of debris. Then he moves quickly to beneath the skylight. INDY (stage whisper) Sallah. (he waits, then louder) Sallah! More waiting. Nothing. Indy looks around for some alternative means of escape. The room doesn't offer any. He looks up at the skylight again. INDY (loudest) Sallah! A long pause. Then something comes down. A makeshift rope. Really just a bunch of clothing tied together - tunics, robes, pants. But what we see first and most prominently, the first section of Indy's escape rope, is a bright Nazi flag. Indy beams and climbs. EXT. ABOVE THE MAP ROOM - DAY Indy sticks his head out the skylight, sees it clear and flops his body out. Sallah, crouching behind the oil drum, immediately starts pulling in the makeshift rope. Sallah stuffs the rope in the oil drum and the two men begin waking toward some tents. HUNGRY GERMAN (O.S.) Hey, you! More water over here! Sallah glances at Indy, Then hurries back in that direction. The Hungry German focuses on Indy. HUNGRY GERMAN Why aren't you at the digs? Come here! Indy bows in wild subservience and hurries off in the opposite direction. HUNGRY GERMAN (yelling after him, irritated) No, dummkopf, I said come! EXT. BETWEEN TWO TENTS - DAY Indy hustles between the tents. Up ahead, two German Officers stop to talk, blocking his exit. He moves along the side of one of the tents until he finds an opening and slips inside. INT. THE TENT Indy finds himself in a tent set up for rather comfortable living. He has just started to cross it when he hears a loud, excited grunting. He turns toward the sound. In the corner, tied to a chair and gagged is Marion. Indy rushes to her, snatches the gag from her mouth and embraces her. They kiss, deep and long. INDY I though you were dead. MARION They were throwing me around like a rag doll. INDY They must have switched baskets. Thank god for that! Bless those bastards. Have they hurt you? MARION No. Not since I got here. They just asked about you - what you knew. The Frenchman's got the hot's for me. I've been playing that along. Oh, Indy, get me out of here. Indy pulls out a knife and then stops suddenly, thinking. MARION What's wrong? INDY (putting the knife away) I have to leave you here for a little while. I know where the Ark is. If I take you out of here they'll start combing the place for us. MARION (louder) Cut me loose! INDY Keep your voice down. MARION (screaming) I said get me out of - Indy pops the gag back in her mouth. Her eyes widen in fury and she grunts obscenities at him. INDY Look, you don't know how glad I am to see you. And I don't like doing this. But the whole thing will be shot if you don't just sit here quietly. They haven't hurt you in the last twenty-four hours, they aren't going to start now. I'll be back to get you in no time. He kisses her forehead, jumps up and hurries out of the tent. EXT. SAND DUNE OUTSIDE DIGS - DAY With the digs behind them, Indy and Sallah run up to the ridge of the dune and over the top. At the bottom of the far side, Omar's truck is parked. Omar and his men are waiting. EXT. DIFFERENT DUNE - DAY This new spot gives Indy a higher, better view of the whole scene. Indy is using a surveyor's instrument to take a reading - WHAT HE SEES Looking through the instrument, Indy gets a line from the map room through the site where the Nazis are digging in the dunes to a spot several dunes over. We focus on that virgin spot of well-hidden sand as - INDY There! EXT. INDY'S DIG - DAY Omar's truck is parked at the spot just viewed from afar. Dunes rise on either side. One of Omar's men has been posted as a lookout up on a ridge. Everybody else - Indy, Sallah, Omar, and his men - have begun digging for the Wells of the Souls. DISSOLVE TO: SAME SCENE - NIGHT They continue to dig furiously, all of them drenched in sweat. The hole has grown but this is slow, back-breaking work. INT. COMMAND TENT - TANIS DIGS - NIGHT Belloq, SHLIEMANN the ranking Nazi, and Shliemann's Aide, GOBLER, come into the tent, which is full of charts and maps, drawings of the Ark, radio equipment, liquor and food. The men have been out digging for the Well all day. They are tired, discouraged, testy. In all matters, Gobler shows his alliance with Shliemann against Belloq with small looks and body language. The Frenchman has disappointed them and he is feeling the isolation of a scapegoat. Belloq gets himself a drink as Shliemann towels off his face. BELLOQ I cautioned you about being premature with that communiqu to Berlin. Archeology is not an exact science. If does not adhere to time schedules. SHLIEMANN The Fuhrer is not a patient man. He demands constant reports and he expects progress. You led me to believe - BELLOQ Nothing. I have made no promises. I said only that it looked very favorable. Perhaps the Ark will still be found in an adjoining chamber. Based on the information in our possession, my calculations were correct. Perhaps some bit of evidence still eludes us. Perhaps GOBLER Perhaps the girl can help us. Belloq shoots him an angry look. SHLIEMANN My feeling exactly. She was in possession of the original piece for years. She may know much. (really evil) If properly motivated... BELLOQ I tell you, she knows nothing useful. SHLIEMANN I'm surprised to find you squeamish. That is not your reputation. But it needn't concern you. I have the perfect man for this kind of work. Shliemann signals Gobler, who steps outside the tent a moment, calls someone and then reappears. Belloq looks warily at the entrance. After a moment Belzig enters, reeking villainy. When his eyes find Shliemann, his superior, he snaps a crisp "Heil, Hitler!" at him, holding his palm rigid a long time, exposing a burned scar in the prefect shape of the sun medallion. EXT. INDY'S DIG - NIGHT In the eerie conjunction of moonlight and torchlight, Indy and the other men step back in awe of their discovery: there, flush with the bottom of their pit, is a heavy stone entry door to an underground chamber. Special prying tools are produced. With two men assigned to each of the two long tools, they work in unison to open the vault. They open it a foot and the other men rush in to flop the heavy door completely open. Down inside, only blackness. The men quickly prostrate themselves around the edge of the entry to look inside. Indy and Sallah each take a torch and hold them down the hole. WHAT THEY SEE The Well of the Souls is a spooky chamber thirty feet deep. The walls are covered with hieroglyphics and carvings. The roof is supported intermittently by stone pillars, the closest of which hits the roof very near the entry hole. The Well is quite large; as Indy and Sallah wave their torches, more and more of the room is revealed. Now the far end of the chamber comes into view. There is a stone altar down there and on this elaborated carved platform is a stone chest, big enough to enclose the Lost Ark and protect it from the ravages of time. This altar appears to be the only place on the floor of the Well that is not covered by a strange, dark carpet of some kind. INDY The Ark must be in that stone case. What's that gray stuff all over the floor - He breaks off realizing exactly what that carpet is. He blanches. Indiana Jones blanches. Indy drops his torch to the floor of the Well. This is answered by the most horrific HISSING imaginable. WHAT HE SEES That think dark carpet is moving. It's alive. It's thousands and thousands of deadly poisonous snakes - Egyptian asps. And the only thing that seems capable of avoiding this venomous groundcover is the altar. The snakes ebb and flow near it, but never encroach on it, as though repelled by some invisible force. Indy shakes his head and talks to himself. INDY Why snakes? Why did it have to be snakes? Anything else. After a moment of this, he stops. He gathers his energy and resolve and gets back to the task. SALLAH Asps. Very dangerous. Where Indy's torch had landed is a circle of snake-free floor. The snakes hate the flame; they stay away. INDY Lots of torches. And oil. I want a landing strip down there. INT. THE WELL OF THE SOULS Fifteen torches have been dropped to the floor of the chamber, combining to make a good-sized clear zone. Smoke begins to fill the room. Several canisters of oil have been lowered into this space. Now, a large wooden crate is lowered slowly by rope. Rope handles are attached to each end of the crate. Up at the hole, Indy gives Sallah a reassuring pat, takes a breath, and swings carefully onto a rope hanging from the hole. Despite his care, he swings a bit and his feet hit the stone pillar which is so near the entry. Surprisingly, the pillar actually moves a bit, showering a light rain of crumbled stone to the floor below. Indy lands on the floor of the Well. He looks at the altar over a sea of undulating death. He picks up an oil canister and splashes two parallel lines of oil and lights them. A path six feet wide begins to open to the altar. Behind Indy, Sallah comes quickly down the rope. We begin to INTERCUT all the action in the Well from here on with insert shots of the snakes outside the flames. Snakes and snakes. We see: snakes piled and entwined six inches deep; mother snakes laying snake eggs; snake eggs hatching little snakes; snakes cannibalizing other snakes. INT. MARION'S TENT Belloq has been talking to the still-bound Marion. He has removed her gag. He is impatient, angry, uncomfortable. Caught between two forces. BELLOQ Believe me, you made a mistake. If you would just give me something to placate them. Some bit of information. MARION I swear to you, I know nothing more. I have no loyalty to Jones. He's brought me only trouble. He wants to believe her. BELLOQ I cannot control them. Marion's frightened look shifts suddenly to the entrance of the tent. There are new arrivals there - Shliemann, Gobler and Belzig. Belzig carries a black leather case. He steps forward and smiles at Marion. BELZIG We meet again, Fraulein. EXT. INDY'S DIG - JUST BEFORE DAWN The sky is just beginning to lighten over the dunes to the east, making dangerously obvious the thin column of smoke rising from the entrance to the Well. Omar and his men are peering through the smoke down into the Well. INT. THE WELL OF THE SOULS Indy and Sallah are on the altar. Pushing together with all their strength, the heavy stone top of the protective chest begins to slide away. Indy and Sallah exchange slightly wary but very excited looks, then continue to push. As the Ark begins to be exposed, the air seems to almost vibrate, to become electrostatically charged. We hear what sounds like a low HUM. The sea of snakes around the altar draws back further from this presence. As the top of the stone chest is pushed completely off and slams down beside it, we see THE LOST ARK OF THE COVENANT. It is awesomely beautiful, breathtaking. 4 feet long, 2.5 feet wide and 2.5 feet high. It's height, however, is increased by the two sculptured gold angels mounted facing each other on the top. Though the body of the Ark is acacia wood, it has been overlaid with gold. An elaborate gold crown surrounds the top edge and gold carrying rings are attached to each corner. Sallah is mesmerized by the sight. His hand starts to reach out and touch one of the angels, but Indy grabs it. INDY Don't touch it! Never touch it! The wooden crate stands open next to the stone chest. Now Indy extracts the wooden poles from its rings and begins fitting them through the rings in the Ark. This takes some maneuvering by the two men, but soon they are able to lift the Ark clear of the stone chest and into the wooden crate. They extract the poles, fasten the top of the crate and stick the poles through the rings of the wooden crate. They start back toward the space under the hole. The fire strips have begun to dwindle, as have some of the torches. The snakes move slowly in toward the clear spaces. Indy and Sallah eye them nervously as they hurry along with their heavy load. Under the hole, they hurriedly attach ropes to the wooden crate and it is pulled up. Indy's concentration is on the tide of snakes. INDY Hurry up! Why did it have to be snakes? Sallah takes the next rope and climbs quickly out of the Well. Indy has picked up a torch and now throws it at a pool of snakes who are too close for his comfort. He turns and takes hold of the exit rope. He gives it a first tug and it falls down into the Well, landing partly beyond the ring of fire where is instantly disappears in a tangle of angry, hissing asps. Indy looks up at the hole. INDY What the - Smiling down at him from the perimeter of the entry are Belloq, Shliemann and Gobler. BELLOQ Why, Dr. Jones, whatever are you doing in such a nasty place? Belloq and the Germans laugh. INDY Why don't you fellows come down here? I'll show you. BELLOQ No thank you, my friend. (he glances around him) I think we are all very comfortable up here. EXT. INDY'S DIG - DAWN Sunlight is flooding this tableau: Sallah, Omar and his men are being held at bay by ten armed Nazis. The wooden crate sits safely nearby. Belzig and another Nazi have the gagged Marion held in their rough grasp. BELLOQ (down to Indy) After all these years, it is most considerate of you to aid me in this way. As Belloq speaks, Shliemann exchanges a look with Belzig. Belzig smiles and takes the gag from Marion's mouth. INT. WELLS OF THE SOULS Shliemann smiles down at Indy. SHLIEMANN I'm afraid we must be going now, Dr. Jones. Our prize is awaited in Berlin. But I do not wish to leave you down in that awful place... (he give a sign) ...all alone. Belzig and the Nazi move Marion to the hole and, to Belloq's surprise, push her in. Marion falls thirty feet screaming. Indy drops his torch, braces, and catches her! Her weight knocks him to the ground, almost into the snakes. She looks around at the snakes, clinging to him more desperately as he struggles to his feet trying to unload her. MARION Don't put me down! Up at the hole, there's plenty of dissension. BELLOQ The girl was mine! SHLIEMANN She is of no use to us. Only our mission for the Fuhrer matters. Shliemann glances meaningfully around at the other Nazis. SHLIEMANN I wonder sometimes, Monsieur, if you have that clearly in mind. Belloq feels how much he is the outsider, his own vulnerability. He backs down with the wisdom of survival. He turns to look down at Indy and Marion. His manner is gallant. BELLOQ Goodbye, mademoiselle. (a pause, then with respect) Indiana Jones... adieu! Belloq and the others step back from the hole and unseen Nazis slam the heavy stone door into place. Marion screams. Her scream is accompanied by - A huge WHOOSH! as air is sucked out and the chamber is sealed. Half of the torches still burning go out with the sound. The remaining torches continue to extinguish at punctuating intervals throughout the following action and the snakes immediately flood into the newly-darkened spaces. Indy puts Marion down and snatches up two burning torches. He hands one to Marion. INDY Don't panic. There's plenty of time for that later. Wave that at anything that slithers. Indy holds his torch out like a lantern and begins a slow O- turn, his eyes peering into the gloom, examining every inch of wall and ceiling. MARION What are you doing? INDY Just watch the floor. Reminded of the encroaching snakes, Marion waves her torch at the nearest edge of their circle. She looks faint. Indy continues his slow turn. MARION Whatever you're doing, do it faster. INDY (he spots something) There! His head whips around, looking at the pillars around the room. He sees what he wants. He grabs one of the oil canisters, looks back to the spot on the wall he's chosen and splashes oil on the floor in that direction, then lights it. A path opens toward that wall. INDY Come on! Marion is frozen in her spot. Indy drags her after him. He splashes oil the rest of the way to the wall. It lights and Indy pulls Marion over to the wall. He pours the remaining oil in a circle around them, creating a safe zone there. INDY Stay here! MARION (grabbing him) Where are you going? INDY I'll be back in a minute. We're going through this wall. Marion looks at the wall, which looks like all the rest to her. She thinks he's crazy. INDY Just keep your eyes open and get ready to run. No matter what happens to me. MARION (panicked) What do you mean? Too late. Indy runs back through the path of flames to the center of the room. Snakes strike as his flying heels. Indy reaches the base of the pillar which he touched briefly on his original descent. He uses his torch to clear away the scattered snakes climbing on it, then pulls out his whip. He draws it back, then wraps is solidly around the pillar 15 feet up. With the torch in his mouth, he begins climbing the pillar. It moves ominously under his weight. The last two torches still burning on the floor go out. Now the only light in the chamber is provided by the torches held by Indy and Marion and the dwindling oil flames. Snakes move in and surround the base of Indy's pillar. The path between Marion and the center of the room is overrun. The circle of flame around Marion is dying down. She looks beyond it with terror-widened eyes, then up through the increasing smoke at the distant Indy. Near the top of the pillar, Indy's hands strain along his taut whip, which he has moves higher. A snake slithers into view there, inches from Indy's straining face. Indy turns his head so the torch in his mouth can burn it. The snake falls from the pillar. Indy's torch is dwindling. Indy works his body around so that he is on the side of the pillar away from Marion. The pillar moves, showering dust. Indy looks at the chamber wall five feet away, takes a breath and swings his legs up against it. He is now braced between pillar and wall. MARION (O.S.) (screaming) Where are you?! Snakes are moving in force up the pillar toward Indy's dwindling torch. Indy grasps the pillar for dear life, grimaces with exertion and pushes against the wall with all he's got. The pillar begins to break loose of the ceiling, then stops. Indy's eyes are on the torch. It is just a spot of flame now. Snakes are sliding up toward his hands. Indy again pushes against the wall and the torch falls out of his mouth. The pillar goes! In the dim light, we see it fall like a tree directly at Marion. Indy rides it down. The top hits the wall three feet from a cringing Marion and smashes through to a black chamber beyond. Indy flies off into the darkness. Gone. Marion clutches her torch at the black hole. MARION Indy! Where are you?! Please Lord! There is a moment that seems an eternity, then Indy appears like an apparition out of the void. INDY Come on! He grabs her and helps her over the remains of the wall into - INT. THE CATACOMBS The winding string of connected chambers is revealed to them only a few feet at a time as their torch lights the way. MARION The snakes... are they here? INDY I guess not. I think I'd be dead. MARION Do you know where you're going? INDY Absolutely. MARION Thank god. Where? INDY Out. They round a corner and flush a covey of bats. Marion screams. INDY Don't do that. It scares me. Marion gives him a look. They round a corner and begin a walk through a maze of chambers that present for their inspection: moldering mummies and stacked sarcophagi; a room decorated with a thousand human skulls; a wall crawling with huge scarabaeid beetles. Marion is quite naturally a nervous wreck; she jumps when Indy grabs her suddenly and points. INDY Look! WHAT THEY SEE There, coming through the crack in the corner of the next chamber, is white blessed sunlight. EXT. THE TANIS DIGS - NEAR AIRSTRIP - DAY Indy and Marion peek out into the light from the shadows of an abandoned excavation. Before them is the improvised airstrip serving the digs: a crude runway, a tent supply depot, two fuel tank trucks. Down by the fuel trucks a German Mechanic is looking skyward. Now Indy and Marion look there too, drawn by the roaring sound of - A Flying Wing, which is circling over the digs in preparation to landing. Now a new figure approaches the German Mechanic. It is Gobler; he yells to the mechanic, indicating the plane. GOBLER Get is gassed immediately! It has an important cargo to take out! In the distance, the Flying Wing lands and rolls toward the men. Gobler spins and heads back toward the main camp, which is hidden from view by a rise. Indy and Marion watch him go. INDY When the Ark gets loaded, we're already going to be on that plane. The Flying Wing rolls up into the space near the fuel trucks. The German Mechanic puts blue blocks in front of the tires as the engines continue to roar. Indy and Marion run in a crouch to a hiding spot closer to the plane, near the supply tent. Suddenly, a Second German Mechanic appears behind them. He is as surprised as they are, but recovers quickly and swings a big monkey wrench at Indy. Indy grabs the swinging arm and the two men tumble out into the open, wrestling. Marion remains hidden, moving fast among the crates. The first German Mechanic, who is just pulling the fuel hose from the tank truck to the plane, sees the combatants and runs to help his countryman. He is almost upon them when Indy puts the Second German away with a devastating left - right - left combination. He turns to find the first German Mechanic flying at him. The roll toward the rear of the Flying Wing and its lethally spinning reversed propellers. In the cockpit of the Flying Wing, the Pilot has been fiddling with his gauges just prior to shutting off his engines. Now he notices the fight going on outside. The fistfight between Indy and the German Mechanic has taken on a new stomach-tightening dimension. The men are fighting and flailing in and out between the spinning props at the back of the plane's wings. Each man comes within inches of becoming instant mincemeat. The Pilot slides away the top of his cockpit and stands up. He pulls a Luger from his side and points it, waiting for a clear shot at Indy. The German Mechanic kicks Indy away from him and the Pilot aims his pistol. Suddenly, Marion appears behind the Pilot, standing on the opposite wing, and bashes him over the head with one of the blue blocks that was holding the tires. The Pilot drops down into the cockpit, his body falling on the throttle. The engines roar louder, revving up. The plane begins to roll, rotating around its one still- blocked set of tires. Marion grabs onto the cockpit to keep from slipping into the props. She bends into the cockpit, trying to pull the Pilot's body off the throttle. No luck. She grimaces and climbs inside. Her shoulder bumps the top of the cockpit; it slides tightly shut above her. Under the moving wing, Indy delivers a knockout rightcross to the German Mechanic which sends him staggering back toward a roaring propeller. Indy's grimace registers the man's demise and a fine mist of blood wafts toward him. Indy spins toward the sound of crumpling metal and sees - The other prop of the Flying Wing slice into a tank truck. The airplane fuel inside floods out onto the pavement, surrounding the plane. Indy backpedals away from the plane, his eyes searching the scene for Marion. Suddenly, he is shocked to see her in the cockpit. He runs toward her, skidding through the gasoline. INDY Get out! Get out! Marion is struggling with the top of the cockpit. She can't budge it. She's trapped. EXT. THE COMMAND TENT - DAY Three Armed Nazis stand guard around the wooden crate containing the Ark. It is sitting near the flopped-open entrance to the Command Tent and there is furious activity going on here. Belloq, Shliemann, Gobler, Belzig and assorted Aides are packing up all the papers and personal items in preparation for a hasty departure. A large crowd of Arab Diggers is milling about among the tents. They all want to get a look at the Ark. Sallah is among them. All at once, there is a earthshaking explosion. Al eyes turn toward the rise that hides the airstrip. A huge fireball floats into view over there. Everyone starts running toward it. Shliemann yells at Belzig and the Armed Nazis. SHLIEMANN Stay with the Ark! EXT. THE RISE ABOVE AIRSTRIP - DAY Almost all the Arabs and Germans in the digs have congregated here and are staring at the burning remains of the Flying Wing. Belloq and Shliemann arrive just as the second fuel truck blows up. The concussion knocks many of the observers flat. Belloq, Shliemann and Gobler watch the scene in alarm. SHLIEMANN Sabotage! BELLOQ We must get the Ark away from this place immediately! SHLIEMANN (to Gobler) Have it put on the truck. We'll fly out of Cairo. Gobler snaps his heels, turns to go. SHLIEMANN And Gobler - (Gobler stops) I want plenty of protection. Gobler nods and runs off. Shliemann heads back toward camp. Belloq hesitates a long moment, studying the burning wreckage with an odd, suspicious look. Finally, he turns and leaves, passing a nearby stack of barrels. When he has passed, Sallah appears from among the barrels. He searches the crowd for his people and starts a broken field run along some tents to avoid a group of Germans and is running flat-out when someone sticks out a leg and sends him flipping. Sallah, dust all over his face, looks angrily toward the concealed culprit. At once, a flashing white grin splits his darkened face. Indy and Marion, splotched with soot and oil, are hiding in the flap of a tent. Sallah runs into their arms and the three embrace warmly. When they break - SALLAH Holy smoke, my friends! I am so pleased you are not dead. MARION Us too. SALLAH (suddenly remembering) The Ark! They're taking it on a truck to Cairo. INDY Where is it? Sallah gestures to follow and all three run off stealthily through the mostly deserted camp. EXT. AMONG THE TENTS - DAY Sallah, Indy and Marion run into a hiding spot behind some water barrels near the Command Tent. They peek out at this activity - In the big space near the Command Tent is parked an open German staff car; inside is a

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within a fraction of an inch of the tiny hole in its sun. The edge of the sunlight moving across the miniature city is still a good two feet beyond the spot Belloq has settled on. And now that line of light is broken by the shadow of an ornate sun at the top of the staff. Indy's face reflects his concentration. And then his immense pleasure. He sees what he came for. Out of the miniature city, one small building is being lit by a tiny beam of sunlight in the center of the shadow of the metal sun. And by some trick of ancient artistry, this one building responds to the sunlight like none of the others. The golden light permeates it: it seems to glow. The building is in a direct line with Belloq's - all the Frenchman's other calculations were right - but it is a foot and a half beyond it. EXT. IN THE CAMP - DAY Sallah, sweating profusely, has finished serving the line of Breakfasting Germans and now heads back to replace the kettle and get away. HUNGRY GERMAN Water. Bring us water. INT. MAP ROOM Indy is on his knees at the miniature city, a special tape measure in his hand. Indy has the tape strung from Belloq's mistaken spot to his own correct spot. He gets his reading, leaps up and crosses to the erect staff. He pulls the headpiece off the staff and hides it in his robes. He quickly breaks the wooden staff in two and throws the pieces behind a pile of debris. Then he moves quickly to beneath the skylight. INDY (stage whisper) Sallah. (he waits, then louder) Sallah! More waiting. Nothing. Indy looks around for some alternative means of escape. The room doesn't offer any. He looks up at the skylight again. INDY (loudest) Sallah! A long pause. Then something comes down. A makeshift rope. Really just a bunch of clothing tied together - tunics, robes, pants. But what we see first and most prominently, the first section of Indy's escape rope, is a bright Nazi flag. Indy beams and climbs. EXT. ABOVE THE MAP ROOM - DAY Indy sticks his head out the skylight, sees it clear and flops his body out. Sallah, crouching behind the oil drum, immediately starts pulling in the makeshift rope. Sallah stuffs the rope in the oil drum and the two men begin waking toward some tents. HUNGRY GERMAN (O.S.) Hey, you! More water over here! Sallah glances at Indy, Then hurries back in that direction. The Hungry German focuses on Indy. HUNGRY GERMAN Why aren't you at the digs? Come here! Indy bows in wild subservience and hurries off in the opposite direction. HUNGRY GERMAN (yelling after him, irritated) No, dummkopf, I said come! EXT. BETWEEN TWO TENTS - DAY Indy hustles between the tents. Up ahead, two German Officers stop to talk, blocking his exit. He moves along the side of one of the tents until he finds an opening and slips inside. INT. THE TENT Indy finds himself in a tent set up for rather comfortable living. He has just started to cross it when he hears a loud, excited grunting. He turns toward the sound. In the corner, tied to a chair and gagged is Marion. Indy rushes to her, snatches the gag from her mouth and embraces her. They kiss, deep and long. INDY I though you were dead. MARION They were throwing me around like a rag doll. INDY They must have switched baskets. Thank god for that! Bless those bastards. Have they hurt you? MARION No. Not since I got here. They just asked about you - what you knew. The Frenchman's got the hot's for me. I've been playing that along. Oh, Indy, get me out of here. Indy pulls out a knife and then stops suddenly, thinking. MARION What's wrong? INDY (putting the knife away) I have to leave you here for a little while. I know where the Ark is. If I take you out of here they'll start combing the place for us. MARION (louder) Cut me loose! INDY Keep your voice down. MARION (screaming) I said get me out of - Indy pops the gag back in her mouth. Her eyes widen in fury and she grunts obscenities at him. INDY Look, you don't know how glad I am to see you. And I don't like doing this. But the whole thing will be shot if you don't just sit here quietly. They haven't hurt you in the last twenty-four hours, they aren't going to start now. I'll be back to get you in no time. He kisses her forehead, jumps up and hurries out of the tent. EXT. SAND DUNE OUTSIDE DIGS - DAY With the digs behind them, Indy and Sallah run up to the ridge of the dune and over the top. At the bottom of the far side, Omar's truck is parked. Omar and his men are waiting. EXT. DIFFERENT DUNE - DAY This new spot gives Indy a higher, better view of the whole scene. Indy is using a surveyor's instrument to take a reading - WHAT HE SEES Looking through the instrument, Indy gets a line from the map room through the site where the Nazis are digging in the dunes to a spot several dunes over. We focus on that virgin spot of well-hidden sand as - INDY There! EXT. INDY'S DIG - DAY Omar's truck is parked at the spot just viewed from afar. Dunes rise on either side. One of Omar's men has been posted as a lookout up on a ridge. Everybody else - Indy, Sallah, Omar, and his men - have begun digging for the Wells of the Souls. DISSOLVE TO: SAME SCENE - NIGHT They continue to dig furiously, all of them drenched in sweat. The hole has grown but this is slow, back-breaking work. INT. COMMAND TENT - TANIS DIGS - NIGHT Belloq, SHLIEMANN the ranking Nazi, and Shliemann's Aide, GOBLER, come into the tent, which is full of charts and maps, drawings of the Ark, radio equipment, liquor and food. The men have been out digging for the Well all day. They are tired, discouraged, testy. In all matters, Gobler shows his alliance with Shliemann against Belloq with small looks and body language. The Frenchman has disappointed them and he is feeling the isolation of a scapegoat. Belloq gets himself a drink as Shliemann towels off his face. BELLOQ I cautioned you about being premature with that communiqu to Berlin. Archeology is not an exact science. If does not adhere to time schedules. SHLIEMANN The Fuhrer is not a patient man. He demands constant reports and he expects progress. You led me to believe - BELLOQ Nothing. I have made no promises. I said only that it looked very favorable. Perhaps the Ark will still be found in an adjoining chamber. Based on the information in our possession, my calculations were correct. Perhaps some bit of evidence still eludes us. Perhaps GOBLER Perhaps the girl can help us. Belloq shoots him an angry look. SHLIEMANN My feeling exactly. She was in possession of the original piece for years. She may know much. (really evil) If properly motivated... BELLOQ I tell you, she knows nothing useful. SHLIEMANN I'm surprised to find you squeamish. That is not your reputation. But it needn't concern you. I have the perfect man for this kind of work. Shliemann signals Gobler, who steps outside the tent a moment, calls someone and then reappears. Belloq looks warily at the entrance. After a moment Belzig enters, reeking villainy. When his eyes find Shliemann, his superior, he snaps a crisp "Heil, Hitler!" at him, holding his palm rigid a long time, exposing a burned scar in the prefect shape of the sun medallion. EXT. INDY'S DIG - NIGHT In the eerie conjunction of moonlight and torchlight, Indy and the other men step back in awe of their discovery: there, flush with the bottom of their pit, is a heavy stone entry door to an underground chamber. Special prying tools are produced. With two men assigned to each of the two long tools, they work in unison to open the vault. They open it a foot and the other men rush in to flop the heavy door completely open. Down inside, only blackness. The men quickly prostrate themselves around the edge of the entry to look inside. Indy and Sallah each take a torch and hold them down the hole. WHAT THEY SEE The Well of the Souls is a spooky chamber thirty feet deep. The walls are covered with hieroglyphics and carvings. The roof is supported intermittently by stone pillars, the closest of which hits the roof very near the entry hole. The Well is quite large; as Indy and Sallah wave their torches, more and more of the room is revealed. Now the far end of the chamber comes into view. There is a stone altar down there and on this elaborated carved platform is a stone chest, big enough to enclose the Lost Ark and protect it from the ravages of time. This altar appears to be the only place on the floor of the Well that is not covered by a strange, dark carpet of some kind. INDY The Ark must be in that stone case. What's that gray stuff all over the floor - He breaks off realizing exactly what that carpet is. He blanches. Indiana Jones blanches. Indy drops his torch to the floor of the Well. This is answered by the most horrific HISSING imaginable. WHAT HE SEES That think dark carpet is moving. It's alive. It's thousands and thousands of deadly poisonous snakes - Egyptian asps. And the only thing that seems capable of avoiding this venomous groundcover is the altar. The snakes ebb and flow near it, but never encroach on it, as though repelled by some invisible force. Indy shakes his head and talks to himself. INDY Why snakes? Why did it have to be snakes? Anything else. After a moment of this, he stops. He gathers his energy and resolve and gets back to the task. SALLAH Asps. Very dangerous. Where Indy's torch had landed is a circle of snake-free floor. The snakes hate the flame; they stay away. INDY Lots of torches. And oil. I want a landing strip down there. INT. THE WELL OF THE SOULS Fifteen torches have been dropped to the floor of the chamber, combining to make a good-sized clear zone. Smoke begins to fill the room. Several canisters of oil have been lowered into this space. Now, a large wooden crate is lowered slowly by rope. Rope handles are attached to each end of the crate. Up at the hole, Indy gives Sallah a reassuring pat, takes a breath, and swings carefully onto a rope hanging from the hole. Despite his care, he swings a bit and his feet hit the stone pillar which is so near the entry. Surprisingly, the pillar actually moves a bit, showering a light rain of crumbled stone to the floor below. Indy lands on the floor of the Well. He looks at the altar over a sea of undulating death. He picks up an oil canister and splashes two parallel lines of oil and lights them. A path six feet wide begins to open to the altar. Behind Indy, Sallah comes quickly down the rope. We begin to INTERCUT all the action in the Well from here on with insert shots of the snakes outside the flames. Snakes and snakes. We see: snakes piled and entwined six inches deep; mother snakes laying snake eggs; snake eggs hatching little snakes; snakes cannibalizing other snakes. INT. MARION'S TENT Belloq has been talking to the still-bound Marion. He has removed her gag. He is impatient, angry, uncomfortable. Caught between two forces. BELLOQ Believe me, you made a mistake. If you would just give me something to placate them. Some bit of information. MARION I swear to you, I know nothing more. I have no loyalty to Jones. He's brought me only trouble. He wants to believe her. BELLOQ I cannot control them. Marion's frightened look shifts suddenly to the entrance of the tent. There are new arrivals there - Shliemann, Gobler and Belzig. Belzig carries a black leather case. He steps forward and smiles at Marion. BELZIG We meet again, Fraulein. EXT. INDY'S DIG - JUST BEFORE DAWN The sky is just beginning to lighten over the dunes to the east, making dangerously obvious the thin column of smoke rising from the entrance to the Well. Omar and his men are peering through the smoke down into the Well. INT. THE WELL OF THE SOULS Indy and Sallah are on the altar. Pushing together with all their strength, the heavy stone top of the protective chest begins to slide away. Indy and Sallah exchange slightly wary but very excited looks, then continue to push. As the Ark begins to be exposed, the air seems to almost vibrate, to become electrostatically charged. We hear what sounds like a low HUM. The sea of snakes around the altar draws back further from this presence. As the top of the stone chest is pushed completely off and slams down beside it, we see THE LOST ARK OF THE COVENANT. It is awesomely beautiful, breathtaking. 4 feet long, 2.5 feet wide and 2.5 feet high. It's height, however, is increased by the two sculptured gold angels mounted facing each other on the top. Though the body of the Ark is acacia wood, it has been overlaid with gold. An elaborate gold crown surrounds the top edge and gold carrying rings are attached to each corner. Sallah is mesmerized by the sight. His hand starts to reach out and touch one of the angels, but Indy grabs it. INDY Don't touch it! Never touch it! The wooden crate stands open next to the stone chest. Now Indy extracts the wooden poles from its rings and begins fitting them through the rings in the Ark. This takes some maneuvering by the two men, but soon they are able to lift the Ark clear of the stone chest and into the wooden crate. They extract the poles, fasten the top of the crate and stick the poles through the rings of the wooden crate. They start back toward the space under the hole. The fire strips have begun to dwindle, as have some of the torches. The snakes move slowly in toward the clear spaces. Indy and Sallah eye them nervously as they hurry along with their heavy load. Under the hole, they hurriedly attach ropes to the wooden crate and it is pulled up. Indy's concentration is on the tide of snakes. INDY Hurry up! Why did it have to be snakes? Sallah takes the next rope and climbs quickly out of the Well. Indy has picked up a torch and now throws it at a pool of snakes who are too close for his comfort. He turns and takes hold of the exit rope. He gives it a first tug and it falls down into the Well, landing partly beyond the ring of fire where is instantly disappears in a tangle of angry, hissing asps. Indy looks up at the hole. INDY What the - Smiling down at him from the perimeter of the entry are Belloq, Shliemann and Gobler. BELLOQ Why, Dr. Jones, whatever are you doing in such a nasty place? Belloq and the Germans laugh. INDY Why don't you fellows come down here? I'll show you. BELLOQ No thank you, my friend. (he glances around him) I think we are all very comfortable up here. EXT. INDY'S DIG - DAWN Sunlight is flooding this tableau: Sallah, Omar and his men are being held at bay by ten armed Nazis. The wooden crate sits safely nearby. Belzig and another Nazi have the gagged Marion held in their rough grasp. BELLOQ (down to Indy) After all these years, it is most considerate of you to aid me in this way. As Belloq speaks, Shliemann exchanges a look with Belzig. Belzig smiles and takes the gag from Marion's mouth. INT. WELLS OF THE SOULS Shliemann smiles down at Indy. SHLIEMANN I'm afraid we must be going now, Dr. Jones. Our prize is awaited in Berlin. But I do not wish to leave you down in that awful place... (he give a sign) ...all alone. Belzig and the Nazi move Marion to the hole and, to Belloq's surprise, push her in. Marion falls thirty feet screaming. Indy drops his torch, braces, and catches her! Her weight knocks him to the ground, almost into the snakes. She looks around at the snakes, clinging to him more desperately as he struggles to his feet trying to unload her. MARION Don't put me down! Up at the hole, there's plenty of dissension. BELLOQ The girl was mine! SHLIEMANN She is of no use to us. Only our mission for the Fuhrer matters. Shliemann glances meaningfully around at the other Nazis. SHLIEMANN I wonder sometimes, Monsieur, if you have that clearly in mind. Belloq feels how much he is the outsider, his own vulnerability. He backs down with the wisdom of survival. He turns to look down at Indy and Marion. His manner is gallant. BELLOQ Goodbye, mademoiselle. (a pause, then with respect) Indiana Jones... adieu! Belloq and the others step back from the hole and unseen Nazis slam the heavy stone door into place. Marion screams. Her scream is accompanied by - A huge WHOOSH! as air is sucked out and the chamber is sealed. Half of the torches still burning go out with the sound. The remaining torches continue to extinguish at punctuating intervals throughout the following action and the snakes immediately flood into the newly-darkened spaces. Indy puts Marion down and snatches up two burning torches. He hands one to Marion. INDY Don't panic. There's plenty of time for that later. Wave that at anything that slithers. Indy holds his torch out like a lantern and begins a slow O- turn, his eyes peering into the gloom, examining every inch of wall and ceiling. MARION What are you doing? INDY Just watch the floor. Reminded of the encroaching snakes, Marion waves her torch at the nearest edge of their circle. She looks faint. Indy continues his slow turn. MARION Whatever you're doing, do it faster. INDY (he spots something) There! His head whips around, looking at the pillars around the room. He sees what he wants. He grabs one of the oil canisters, looks back to the spot on the wall he's chosen and splashes oil on the floor in that direction, then lights it. A path opens toward that wall. INDY Come on! Marion is frozen in her spot. Indy drags her after him. He splashes oil the rest of the way to the wall. It lights and Indy pulls Marion over to the wall. He pours the remaining oil in a circle around them, creating a safe zone there. INDY Stay here! MARION (grabbing him) Where are you going? INDY I'll be back in a minute. We're going through this wall. Marion looks at the wall, which looks like all the rest to her. She thinks he's crazy. INDY Just keep your eyes open and get ready to run. No matter what happens to me. MARION (panicked) What do you mean? Too late. Indy runs back through the path of flames to the center of the room. Snakes strike as his flying heels. Indy reaches the base of the pillar which he touched briefly on his original descent. He uses his torch to clear away the scattered snakes climbing on it, then pulls out his whip. He draws it back, then wraps is solidly around the pillar 15 feet up. With the torch in his mouth, he begins climbing the pillar. It moves ominously under his weight. The last two torches still burning on the floor go out. Now the only light in the chamber is provided by the torches held by Indy and Marion and the dwindling oil flames. Snakes move in and surround the base of Indy's pillar. The path between Marion and the center of the room is overrun. The circle of flame around Marion is dying down. She looks beyond it with terror-widened eyes, then up through the increasing smoke at the distant Indy. Near the top of the pillar, Indy's hands strain along his taut whip, which he has moves higher. A snake slithers into view there, inches from Indy's straining face. Indy turns his head so the torch in his mouth can burn it. The snake falls from the pillar. Indy's torch is dwindling. Indy works his body around so that he is on the side of the pillar away from Marion. The pillar moves, showering dust. Indy looks at the chamber wall five feet away, takes a breath and swings his legs up against it. He is now braced between pillar and wall. MARION (O.S.) (screaming) Where are you?! Snakes are moving in force up the pillar toward Indy's dwindling torch. Indy grasps the pillar for dear life, grimaces with exertion and pushes against the wall with all he's got. The pillar begins to break loose of the ceiling, then stops. Indy's eyes are on the torch. It is just a spot of flame now. Snakes are sliding up toward his hands. Indy again pushes against the wall and the torch falls out of his mouth. The pillar goes! In the dim light, we see it fall like a tree directly at Marion. Indy rides it down. The top hits the wall three feet from a cringing Marion and smashes through to a black chamber beyond. Indy flies off into the darkness. Gone. Marion clutches her torch at the black hole. MARION Indy! Where are you?! Please Lord! There is a moment that seems an eternity, then Indy appears like an apparition out of the void. INDY Come on! He grabs her and helps her over the remains of the wall into - INT. THE CATACOMBS The winding string of connected chambers is revealed to them only a few feet at a time as their torch lights the way. MARION The snakes... are they here? INDY I guess not. I think I'd be dead. MARION Do you know where you're going? INDY Absolutely. MARION Thank god. Where? INDY Out. They round a corner and flush a covey of bats. Marion screams. INDY Don't do that. It scares me. Marion gives him a look. They round a corner and begin a walk through a maze of chambers that present for their inspection: moldering mummies and stacked sarcophagi; a room decorated with a thousand human skulls; a wall crawling with huge scarabaeid beetles. Marion is quite naturally a nervous wreck; she jumps when Indy grabs her suddenly and points. INDY Look! WHAT THEY SEE There, coming through the crack in the corner of the next chamber, is white blessed sunlight. EXT. THE TANIS DIGS - NEAR AIRSTRIP - DAY Indy and Marion peek out into the light from the shadows of an abandoned excavation. Before them is the improvised airstrip serving the digs: a crude runway, a tent supply depot, two fuel tank trucks. Down by the fuel trucks a German Mechanic is looking skyward. Now Indy and Marion look there too, drawn by the roaring sound of - A Flying Wing, which is circling over the digs in preparation to landing. Now a new figure approaches the German Mechanic. It is Gobler; he yells to the mechanic, indicating the plane. GOBLER Get is gassed immediately! It has an important cargo to take out! In the distance, the Flying Wing lands and rolls toward the men. Gobler spins and heads back toward the main camp, which is hidden from view by a rise. Indy and Marion watch him go. INDY When the Ark gets loaded, we're already going to be on that plane. The Flying Wing rolls up into the space near the fuel trucks. The German Mechanic puts blue blocks in front of the tires as the engines continue to roar. Indy and Marion run in a crouch to a hiding spot closer to the plane, near the supply tent. Suddenly, a Second German Mechanic appears behind them. He is as surprised as they are, but recovers quickly and swings a big monkey wrench at Indy. Indy grabs the swinging arm and the two men tumble out into the open, wrestling. Marion remains hidden, moving fast among the crates. The first German Mechanic, who is just pulling the fuel hose from the tank truck to the plane, sees the combatants and runs to help his countryman. He is almost upon them when Indy puts the Second German away with a devastating left - right - left combination. He turns to find the first German Mechanic flying at him. The roll toward the rear of the Flying Wing and its lethally spinning reversed propellers. In the cockpit of the Flying Wing, the Pilot has been fiddling with his gauges just prior to shutting off his engines. Now he notices the fight going on outside. The fistfight between Indy and the German Mechanic has taken on a new stomach-tightening dimension. The men are fighting and flailing in and out between the spinning props at the back of the plane's wings. Each man comes within inches of becoming instant mincemeat. The Pilot slides away the top of his cockpit and stands up. He pulls a Luger from his side and points it, waiting for a clear shot at Indy. The German Mechanic kicks Indy away from him and the Pilot aims his pistol. Suddenly, Marion appears behind the Pilot, standing on the opposite wing, and bashes him over the head with one of the blue blocks that was holding the tires. The Pilot drops down into the cockpit, his body falling on the throttle. The engines roar louder, revving up. The plane begins to roll, rotating around its one still- blocked set of tires. Marion grabs onto the cockpit to keep from slipping into the props. She bends into the cockpit, trying to pull the Pilot's body off the throttle. No luck. She grimaces and climbs inside. Her shoulder bumps the top of the cockpit; it slides tightly shut above her. Under the moving wing, Indy delivers a knockout rightcross to the German Mechanic which sends him staggering back toward a roaring propeller. Indy's grimace registers the man's demise and a fine mist of blood wafts toward him. Indy spins toward the sound of crumpling metal and sees - The other prop of the Flying Wing slice into a tank truck. The airplane fuel inside floods out onto the pavement, surrounding the plane. Indy backpedals away from the plane, his eyes searching the scene for Marion. Suddenly, he is shocked to see her in the cockpit. He runs toward her, skidding through the gasoline. INDY Get out! Get out! Marion is struggling with the top of the cockpit. She can't budge it. She's trapped. EXT. THE COMMAND TENT - DAY Three Armed Nazis stand guard around the wooden crate containing the Ark. It is sitting near the flopped-open entrance to the Command Tent and there is furious activity going on here. Belloq, Shliemann, Gobler, Belzig and assorted Aides are packing up all the papers and personal items in preparation for a hasty departure. A large crowd of Arab Diggers is milling about among the tents. They all want to get a look at the Ark. Sallah is among them. All at once, there is a earthshaking explosion. Al eyes turn toward the rise that hides the airstrip. A huge fireball floats into view over there. Everyone starts running toward it. Shliemann yells at Belzig and the Armed Nazis. SHLIEMANN Stay with the Ark! EXT. THE RISE ABOVE AIRSTRIP - DAY Almost all the Arabs and Germans in the digs have congregated here and are staring at the burning remains of the Flying Wing. Belloq and Shliemann arrive just as the second fuel truck blows up. The concussion knocks many of the observers flat. Belloq, Shliemann and Gobler watch the scene in alarm. SHLIEMANN Sabotage! BELLOQ We must get the Ark away from this place immediately! SHLIEMANN (to Gobler) Have it put on the truck. We'll fly out of Cairo. Gobler snaps his heels, turns to go. SHLIEMANN And Gobler - (Gobler stops) I want plenty of protection. Gobler nods and runs off. Shliemann heads back toward camp. Belloq hesitates a long moment, studying the burning wreckage with an odd, suspicious look. Finally, he turns and leaves, passing a nearby stack of barrels. When he has passed, Sallah appears from among the barrels. He searches the crowd for his people and starts a broken field run along some tents to avoid a group of Germans and is running flat-out when someone sticks out a leg and sends him flipping. Sallah, dust all over his face, looks angrily toward the concealed culprit. At once, a flashing white grin splits his darkened face. Indy and Marion, splotched with soot and oil, are hiding in the flap of a tent. Sallah runs into their arms and the three embrace warmly. When they break - SALLAH Holy smoke, my friends! I am so pleased you are not dead. MARION Us too. SALLAH (suddenly remembering) The Ark! They're taking it on a truck to Cairo. INDY Where is it? Sallah gestures to follow and all three run off stealthily through the mostly deserted camp. EXT. AMONG THE TENTS - DAY Sallah, Indy and Marion run into a hiding spot behind some water barrels near the Command Tent. They peek out at this activity - In the big space near the Command Tent is parked an open German staff car; inside is a

nothing

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

within a fraction of an inch of the tiny hole in its sun. The edge of the sunlight moving across the miniature city is still a good two feet beyond the spot Belloq has settled on. And now that line of light is broken by the shadow of an ornate sun at the top of the staff. Indy's face reflects his concentration. And then his immense pleasure. He sees what he came for. Out of the miniature city, one small building is being lit by a tiny beam of sunlight in the center of the shadow of the metal sun. And by some trick of ancient artistry, this one building responds to the sunlight like none of the others. The golden light permeates it: it seems to glow. The building is in a direct line with Belloq's - all the Frenchman's other calculations were right - but it is a foot and a half beyond it. EXT. IN THE CAMP - DAY Sallah, sweating profusely, has finished serving the line of Breakfasting Germans and now heads back to replace the kettle and get away. HUNGRY GERMAN Water. Bring us water. INT. MAP ROOM Indy is on his knees at the miniature city, a special tape measure in his hand. Indy has the tape strung from Belloq's mistaken spot to his own correct spot. He gets his reading, leaps up and crosses to the erect staff. He pulls the headpiece off the staff and hides it in his robes. He quickly breaks the wooden staff in two and throws the pieces behind a pile of debris. Then he moves quickly to beneath the skylight. INDY (stage whisper) Sallah. (he waits, then louder) Sallah! More waiting. Nothing. Indy looks around for some alternative means of escape. The room doesn't offer any. He looks up at the skylight again. INDY (loudest) Sallah! A long pause. Then something comes down. A makeshift rope. Really just a bunch of clothing tied together - tunics, robes, pants. But what we see first and most prominently, the first section of Indy's escape rope, is a bright Nazi flag. Indy beams and climbs. EXT. ABOVE THE MAP ROOM - DAY Indy sticks his head out the skylight, sees it clear and flops his body out. Sallah, crouching behind the oil drum, immediately starts pulling in the makeshift rope. Sallah stuffs the rope in the oil drum and the two men begin waking toward some tents. HUNGRY GERMAN (O.S.) Hey, you! More water over here! Sallah glances at Indy, Then hurries back in that direction. The Hungry German focuses on Indy. HUNGRY GERMAN Why aren't you at the digs? Come here! Indy bows in wild subservience and hurries off in the opposite direction. HUNGRY GERMAN (yelling after him, irritated) No, dummkopf, I said come! EXT. BETWEEN TWO TENTS - DAY Indy hustles between the tents. Up ahead, two German Officers stop to talk, blocking his exit. He moves along the side of one of the tents until he finds an opening and slips inside. INT. THE TENT Indy finds himself in a tent set up for rather comfortable living. He has just started to cross it when he hears a loud, excited grunting. He turns toward the sound. In the corner, tied to a chair and gagged is Marion. Indy rushes to her, snatches the gag from her mouth and embraces her. They kiss, deep and long. INDY I though you were dead. MARION They were throwing me around like a rag doll. INDY They must have switched baskets. Thank god for that! Bless those bastards. Have they hurt you? MARION No. Not since I got here. They just asked about you - what you knew. The Frenchman's got the hot's for me. I've been playing that along. Oh, Indy, get me out of here. Indy pulls out a knife and then stops suddenly, thinking. MARION What's wrong? INDY (putting the knife away) I have to leave you here for a little while. I know where the Ark is. If I take you out of here they'll start combing the place for us. MARION (louder) Cut me loose! INDY Keep your voice down. MARION (screaming) I said get me out of - Indy pops the gag back in her mouth. Her eyes widen in fury and she grunts obscenities at him. INDY Look, you don't know how glad I am to see you. And I don't like doing this. But the whole thing will be shot if you don't just sit here quietly. They haven't hurt you in the last twenty-four hours, they aren't going to start now. I'll be back to get you in no time. He kisses her forehead, jumps up and hurries out of the tent. EXT. SAND DUNE OUTSIDE DIGS - DAY With the digs behind them, Indy and Sallah run up to the ridge of the dune and over the top. At the bottom of the far side, Omar's truck is parked. Omar and his men are waiting. EXT. DIFFERENT DUNE - DAY This new spot gives Indy a higher, better view of the whole scene. Indy is using a surveyor's instrument to take a reading - WHAT HE SEES Looking through the instrument, Indy gets a line from the map room through the site where the Nazis are digging in the dunes to a spot several dunes over. We focus on that virgin spot of well-hidden sand as - INDY There! EXT. INDY'S DIG - DAY Omar's truck is parked at the spot just viewed from afar. Dunes rise on either side. One of Omar's men has been posted as a lookout up on a ridge. Everybody else - Indy, Sallah, Omar, and his men - have begun digging for the Wells of the Souls. DISSOLVE TO: SAME SCENE - NIGHT They continue to dig furiously, all of them drenched in sweat. The hole has grown but this is slow, back-breaking work. INT. COMMAND TENT - TANIS DIGS - NIGHT Belloq, SHLIEMANN the ranking Nazi, and Shliemann's Aide, GOBLER, come into the tent, which is full of charts and maps, drawings of the Ark, radio equipment, liquor and food. The men have been out digging for the Well all day. They are tired, discouraged, testy. In all matters, Gobler shows his alliance with Shliemann against Belloq with small looks and body language. The Frenchman has disappointed them and he is feeling the isolation of a scapegoat. Belloq gets himself a drink as Shliemann towels off his face. BELLOQ I cautioned you about being premature with that communiqu to Berlin. Archeology is not an exact science. If does not adhere to time schedules. SHLIEMANN The Fuhrer is not a patient man. He demands constant reports and he expects progress. You led me to believe - BELLOQ Nothing. I have made no promises. I said only that it looked very favorable. Perhaps the Ark will still be found in an adjoining chamber. Based on the information in our possession, my calculations were correct. Perhaps some bit of evidence still eludes us. Perhaps GOBLER Perhaps the girl can help us. Belloq shoots him an angry look. SHLIEMANN My feeling exactly. She was in possession of the original piece for years. She may know much. (really evil) If properly motivated... BELLOQ I tell you, she knows nothing useful. SHLIEMANN I'm surprised to find you squeamish. That is not your reputation. But it needn't concern you. I have the perfect man for this kind of work. Shliemann signals Gobler, who steps outside the tent a moment, calls someone and then reappears. Belloq looks warily at the entrance. After a moment Belzig enters, reeking villainy. When his eyes find Shliemann, his superior, he snaps a crisp "Heil, Hitler!" at him, holding his palm rigid a long time, exposing a burned scar in the prefect shape of the sun medallion. EXT. INDY'S DIG - NIGHT In the eerie conjunction of moonlight and torchlight, Indy and the other men step back in awe of their discovery: there, flush with the bottom of their pit, is a heavy stone entry door to an underground chamber. Special prying tools are produced. With two men assigned to each of the two long tools, they work in unison to open the vault. They open it a foot and the other men rush in to flop the heavy door completely open. Down inside, only blackness. The men quickly prostrate themselves around the edge of the entry to look inside. Indy and Sallah each take a torch and hold them down the hole. WHAT THEY SEE The Well of the Souls is a spooky chamber thirty feet deep. The walls are covered with hieroglyphics and carvings. The roof is supported intermittently by stone pillars, the closest of which hits the roof very near the entry hole. The Well is quite large; as Indy and Sallah wave their torches, more and more of the room is revealed. Now the far end of the chamber comes into view. There is a stone altar down there and on this elaborated carved platform is a stone chest, big enough to enclose the Lost Ark and protect it from the ravages of time. This altar appears to be the only place on the floor of the Well that is not covered by a strange, dark carpet of some kind. INDY The Ark must be in that stone case. What's that gray stuff all over the floor - He breaks off realizing exactly what that carpet is. He blanches. Indiana Jones blanches. Indy drops his torch to the floor of the Well. This is answered by the most horrific HISSING imaginable. WHAT HE SEES That think dark carpet is moving. It's alive. It's thousands and thousands of deadly poisonous snakes - Egyptian asps. And the only thing that seems capable of avoiding this venomous groundcover is the altar. The snakes ebb and flow near it, but never encroach on it, as though repelled by some invisible force. Indy shakes his head and talks to himself. INDY Why snakes? Why did it have to be snakes? Anything else. After a moment of this, he stops. He gathers his energy and resolve and gets back to the task. SALLAH Asps. Very dangerous. Where Indy's torch had landed is a circle of snake-free floor. The snakes hate the flame; they stay away. INDY Lots of torches. And oil. I want a landing strip down there. INT. THE WELL OF THE SOULS Fifteen torches have been dropped to the floor of the chamber, combining to make a good-sized clear zone. Smoke begins to fill the room. Several canisters of oil have been lowered into this space. Now, a large wooden crate is lowered slowly by rope. Rope handles are attached to each end of the crate. Up at the hole, Indy gives Sallah a reassuring pat, takes a breath, and swings carefully onto a rope hanging from the hole. Despite his care, he swings a bit and his feet hit the stone pillar which is so near the entry. Surprisingly, the pillar actually moves a bit, showering a light rain of crumbled stone to the floor below. Indy lands on the floor of the Well. He looks at the altar over a sea of undulating death. He picks up an oil canister and splashes two parallel lines of oil and lights them. A path six feet wide begins to open to the altar. Behind Indy, Sallah comes quickly down the rope. We begin to INTERCUT all the action in the Well from here on with insert shots of the snakes outside the flames. Snakes and snakes. We see: snakes piled and entwined six inches deep; mother snakes laying snake eggs; snake eggs hatching little snakes; snakes cannibalizing other snakes. INT. MARION'S TENT Belloq has been talking to the still-bound Marion. He has removed her gag. He is impatient, angry, uncomfortable. Caught between two forces. BELLOQ Believe me, you made a mistake. If you would just give me something to placate them. Some bit of information. MARION I swear to you, I know nothing more. I have no loyalty to Jones. He's brought me only trouble. He wants to believe her. BELLOQ I cannot control them. Marion's frightened look shifts suddenly to the entrance of the tent. There are new arrivals there - Shliemann, Gobler and Belzig. Belzig carries a black leather case. He steps forward and smiles at Marion. BELZIG We meet again, Fraulein. EXT. INDY'S DIG - JUST BEFORE DAWN The sky is just beginning to lighten over the dunes to the east, making dangerously obvious the thin column of smoke rising from the entrance to the Well. Omar and his men are peering through the smoke down into the Well. INT. THE WELL OF THE SOULS Indy and Sallah are on the altar. Pushing together with all their strength, the heavy stone top of the protective chest begins to slide away. Indy and Sallah exchange slightly wary but very excited looks, then continue to push. As the Ark begins to be exposed, the air seems to almost vibrate, to become electrostatically charged. We hear what sounds like a low HUM. The sea of snakes around the altar draws back further from this presence. As the top of the stone chest is pushed completely off and slams down beside it, we see THE LOST ARK OF THE COVENANT. It is awesomely beautiful, breathtaking. 4 feet long, 2.5 feet wide and 2.5 feet high. It's height, however, is increased by the two sculptured gold angels mounted facing each other on the top. Though the body of the Ark is acacia wood, it has been overlaid with gold. An elaborate gold crown surrounds the top edge and gold carrying rings are attached to each corner. Sallah is mesmerized by the sight. His hand starts to reach out and touch one of the angels, but Indy grabs it. INDY Don't touch it! Never touch it! The wooden crate stands open next to the stone chest. Now Indy extracts the wooden poles from its rings and begins fitting them through the rings in the Ark. This takes some maneuvering by the two men, but soon they are able to lift the Ark clear of the stone chest and into the wooden crate. They extract the poles, fasten the top of the crate and stick the poles through the rings of the wooden crate. They start back toward the space under the hole. The fire strips have begun to dwindle, as have some of the torches. The snakes move slowly in toward the clear spaces. Indy and Sallah eye them nervously as they hurry along with their heavy load. Under the hole, they hurriedly attach ropes to the wooden crate and it is pulled up. Indy's concentration is on the tide of snakes. INDY Hurry up! Why did it have to be snakes? Sallah takes the next rope and climbs quickly out of the Well. Indy has picked up a torch and now throws it at a pool of snakes who are too close for his comfort. He turns and takes hold of the exit rope. He gives it a first tug and it falls down into the Well, landing partly beyond the ring of fire where is instantly disappears in a tangle of angry, hissing asps. Indy looks up at the hole. INDY What the - Smiling down at him from the perimeter of the entry are Belloq, Shliemann and Gobler. BELLOQ Why, Dr. Jones, whatever are you doing in such a nasty place? Belloq and the Germans laugh. INDY Why don't you fellows come down here? I'll show you. BELLOQ No thank you, my friend. (he glances around him) I think we are all very comfortable up here. EXT. INDY'S DIG - DAWN Sunlight is flooding this tableau: Sallah, Omar and his men are being held at bay by ten armed Nazis. The wooden crate sits safely nearby. Belzig and another Nazi have the gagged Marion held in their rough grasp. BELLOQ (down to Indy) After all these years, it is most considerate of you to aid me in this way. As Belloq speaks, Shliemann exchanges a look with Belzig. Belzig smiles and takes the gag from Marion's mouth. INT. WELLS OF THE SOULS Shliemann smiles down at Indy. SHLIEMANN I'm afraid we must be going now, Dr. Jones. Our prize is awaited in Berlin. But I do not wish to leave you down in that awful place... (he give a sign) ...all alone. Belzig and the Nazi move Marion to the hole and, to Belloq's surprise, push her in. Marion falls thirty feet screaming. Indy drops his torch, braces, and catches her! Her weight knocks him to the ground, almost into the snakes. She looks around at the snakes, clinging to him more desperately as he struggles to his feet trying to unload her. MARION Don't put me down! Up at the hole, there's plenty of dissension. BELLOQ The girl was mine! SHLIEMANN She is of no use to us. Only our mission for the Fuhrer matters. Shliemann glances meaningfully around at the other Nazis. SHLIEMANN I wonder sometimes, Monsieur, if you have that clearly in mind. Belloq feels how much he is the outsider, his own vulnerability. He backs down with the wisdom of survival. He turns to look down at Indy and Marion. His manner is gallant. BELLOQ Goodbye, mademoiselle. (a pause, then with respect) Indiana Jones... adieu! Belloq and the others step back from the hole and unseen Nazis slam the heavy stone door into place. Marion screams. Her scream is accompanied by - A huge WHOOSH! as air is sucked out and the chamber is sealed. Half of the torches still burning go out with the sound. The remaining torches continue to extinguish at punctuating intervals throughout the following action and the snakes immediately flood into the newly-darkened spaces. Indy puts Marion down and snatches up two burning torches. He hands one to Marion. INDY Don't panic. There's plenty of time for that later. Wave that at anything that slithers. Indy holds his torch out like a lantern and begins a slow O- turn, his eyes peering into the gloom, examining every inch of wall and ceiling. MARION What are you doing? INDY Just watch the floor. Reminded of the encroaching snakes, Marion waves her torch at the nearest edge of their circle. She looks faint. Indy continues his slow turn. MARION Whatever you're doing, do it faster. INDY (he spots something) There! His head whips around, looking at the pillars around the room. He sees what he wants. He grabs one of the oil canisters, looks back to the spot on the wall he's chosen and splashes oil on the floor in that direction, then lights it. A path opens toward that wall. INDY Come on! Marion is frozen in her spot. Indy drags her after him. He splashes oil the rest of the way to the wall. It lights and Indy pulls Marion over to the wall. He pours the remaining oil in a circle around them, creating a safe zone there. INDY Stay here! MARION (grabbing him) Where are you going? INDY I'll be back in a minute. We're going through this wall. Marion looks at the wall, which looks like all the rest to her. She thinks he's crazy. INDY Just keep your eyes open and get ready to run. No matter what happens to me. MARION (panicked) What do you mean? Too late. Indy runs back through the path of flames to the center of the room. Snakes strike as his flying heels. Indy reaches the base of the pillar which he touched briefly on his original descent. He uses his torch to clear away the scattered snakes climbing on it, then pulls out his whip. He draws it back, then wraps is solidly around the pillar 15 feet up. With the torch in his mouth, he begins climbing the pillar. It moves ominously under his weight. The last two torches still burning on the floor go out. Now the only light in the chamber is provided by the torches held by Indy and Marion and the dwindling oil flames. Snakes move in and surround the base of Indy's pillar. The path between Marion and the center of the room is overrun. The circle of flame around Marion is dying down. She looks beyond it with terror-widened eyes, then up through the increasing smoke at the distant Indy. Near the top of the pillar, Indy's hands strain along his taut whip, which he has moves higher. A snake slithers into view there, inches from Indy's straining face. Indy turns his head so the torch in his mouth can burn it. The snake falls from the pillar. Indy's torch is dwindling. Indy works his body around so that he is on the side of the pillar away from Marion. The pillar moves, showering dust. Indy looks at the chamber wall five feet away, takes a breath and swings his legs up against it. He is now braced between pillar and wall. MARION (O.S.) (screaming) Where are you?! Snakes are moving in force up the pillar toward Indy's dwindling torch. Indy grasps the pillar for dear life, grimaces with exertion and pushes against the wall with all he's got. The pillar begins to break loose of the ceiling, then stops. Indy's eyes are on the torch. It is just a spot of flame now. Snakes are sliding up toward his hands. Indy again pushes against the wall and the torch falls out of his mouth. The pillar goes! In the dim light, we see it fall like a tree directly at Marion. Indy rides it down. The top hits the wall three feet from a cringing Marion and smashes through to a black chamber beyond. Indy flies off into the darkness. Gone. Marion clutches her torch at the black hole. MARION Indy! Where are you?! Please Lord! There is a moment that seems an eternity, then Indy appears like an apparition out of the void. INDY Come on! He grabs her and helps her over the remains of the wall into - INT. THE CATACOMBS The winding string of connected chambers is revealed to them only a few feet at a time as their torch lights the way. MARION The snakes... are they here? INDY I guess not. I think I'd be dead. MARION Do you know where you're going? INDY Absolutely. MARION Thank god. Where? INDY Out. They round a corner and flush a covey of bats. Marion screams. INDY Don't do that. It scares me. Marion gives him a look. They round a corner and begin a walk through a maze of chambers that present for their inspection: moldering mummies and stacked sarcophagi; a room decorated with a thousand human skulls; a wall crawling with huge scarabaeid beetles. Marion is quite naturally a nervous wreck; she jumps when Indy grabs her suddenly and points. INDY Look! WHAT THEY SEE There, coming through the crack in the corner of the next chamber, is white blessed sunlight. EXT. THE TANIS DIGS - NEAR AIRSTRIP - DAY Indy and Marion peek out into the light from the shadows of an abandoned excavation. Before them is the improvised airstrip serving the digs: a crude runway, a tent supply depot, two fuel tank trucks. Down by the fuel trucks a German Mechanic is looking skyward. Now Indy and Marion look there too, drawn by the roaring sound of - A Flying Wing, which is circling over the digs in preparation to landing. Now a new figure approaches the German Mechanic. It is Gobler; he yells to the mechanic, indicating the plane. GOBLER Get is gassed immediately! It has an important cargo to take out! In the distance, the Flying Wing lands and rolls toward the men. Gobler spins and heads back toward the main camp, which is hidden from view by a rise. Indy and Marion watch him go. INDY When the Ark gets loaded, we're already going to be on that plane. The Flying Wing rolls up into the space near the fuel trucks. The German Mechanic puts blue blocks in front of the tires as the engines continue to roar. Indy and Marion run in a crouch to a hiding spot closer to the plane, near the supply tent. Suddenly, a Second German Mechanic appears behind them. He is as surprised as they are, but recovers quickly and swings a big monkey wrench at Indy. Indy grabs the swinging arm and the two men tumble out into the open, wrestling. Marion remains hidden, moving fast among the crates. The first German Mechanic, who is just pulling the fuel hose from the tank truck to the plane, sees the combatants and runs to help his countryman. He is almost upon them when Indy puts the Second German away with a devastating left - right - left combination. He turns to find the first German Mechanic flying at him. The roll toward the rear of the Flying Wing and its lethally spinning reversed propellers. In the cockpit of the Flying Wing, the Pilot has been fiddling with his gauges just prior to shutting off his engines. Now he notices the fight going on outside. The fistfight between Indy and the German Mechanic has taken on a new stomach-tightening dimension. The men are fighting and flailing in and out between the spinning props at the back of the plane's wings. Each man comes within inches of becoming instant mincemeat. The Pilot slides away the top of his cockpit and stands up. He pulls a Luger from his side and points it, waiting for a clear shot at Indy. The German Mechanic kicks Indy away from him and the Pilot aims his pistol. Suddenly, Marion appears behind the Pilot, standing on the opposite wing, and bashes him over the head with one of the blue blocks that was holding the tires. The Pilot drops down into the cockpit, his body falling on the throttle. The engines roar louder, revving up. The plane begins to roll, rotating around its one still- blocked set of tires. Marion grabs onto the cockpit to keep from slipping into the props. She bends into the cockpit, trying to pull the Pilot's body off the throttle. No luck. She grimaces and climbs inside. Her shoulder bumps the top of the cockpit; it slides tightly shut above her. Under the moving wing, Indy delivers a knockout rightcross to the German Mechanic which sends him staggering back toward a roaring propeller. Indy's grimace registers the man's demise and a fine mist of blood wafts toward him. Indy spins toward the sound of crumpling metal and sees - The other prop of the Flying Wing slice into a tank truck. The airplane fuel inside floods out onto the pavement, surrounding the plane. Indy backpedals away from the plane, his eyes searching the scene for Marion. Suddenly, he is shocked to see her in the cockpit. He runs toward her, skidding through the gasoline. INDY Get out! Get out! Marion is struggling with the top of the cockpit. She can't budge it. She's trapped. EXT. THE COMMAND TENT - DAY Three Armed Nazis stand guard around the wooden crate containing the Ark. It is sitting near the flopped-open entrance to the Command Tent and there is furious activity going on here. Belloq, Shliemann, Gobler, Belzig and assorted Aides are packing up all the papers and personal items in preparation for a hasty departure. A large crowd of Arab Diggers is milling about among the tents. They all want to get a look at the Ark. Sallah is among them. All at once, there is a earthshaking explosion. Al eyes turn toward the rise that hides the airstrip. A huge fireball floats into view over there. Everyone starts running toward it. Shliemann yells at Belzig and the Armed Nazis. SHLIEMANN Stay with the Ark! EXT. THE RISE ABOVE AIRSTRIP - DAY Almost all the Arabs and Germans in the digs have congregated here and are staring at the burning remains of the Flying Wing. Belloq and Shliemann arrive just as the second fuel truck blows up. The concussion knocks many of the observers flat. Belloq, Shliemann and Gobler watch the scene in alarm. SHLIEMANN Sabotage! BELLOQ We must get the Ark away from this place immediately! SHLIEMANN (to Gobler) Have it put on the truck. We'll fly out of Cairo. Gobler snaps his heels, turns to go. SHLIEMANN And Gobler - (Gobler stops) I want plenty of protection. Gobler nods and runs off. Shliemann heads back toward camp. Belloq hesitates a long moment, studying the burning wreckage with an odd, suspicious look. Finally, he turns and leaves, passing a nearby stack of barrels. When he has passed, Sallah appears from among the barrels. He searches the crowd for his people and starts a broken field run along some tents to avoid a group of Germans and is running flat-out when someone sticks out a leg and sends him flipping. Sallah, dust all over his face, looks angrily toward the concealed culprit. At once, a flashing white grin splits his darkened face. Indy and Marion, splotched with soot and oil, are hiding in the flap of a tent. Sallah runs into their arms and the three embrace warmly. When they break - SALLAH Holy smoke, my friends! I am so pleased you are not dead. MARION Us too. SALLAH (suddenly remembering) The Ark! They're taking it on a truck to Cairo. INDY Where is it? Sallah gestures to follow and all three run off stealthily through the mostly deserted camp. EXT. AMONG THE TENTS - DAY Sallah, Indy and Marion run into a hiding spot behind some water barrels near the Command Tent. They peek out at this activity - In the big space near the Command Tent is parked an open German staff car; inside is a

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within a fraction of an inch of the tiny hole in its sun. The edge of the sunlight moving across the miniature city is still a good two feet beyond the spot Belloq has settled on. And now that line of light is broken by the shadow of an ornate sun at the top of the staff. Indy's face reflects his concentration. And then his immense pleasure. He sees what he came for. Out of the miniature city, one small building is being lit by a tiny beam of sunlight in the center of the shadow of the metal sun. And by some trick of ancient artistry, this one building responds to the sunlight like none of the others. The golden light permeates it: it seems to glow. The building is in a direct line with Belloq's - all the Frenchman's other calculations were right - but it is a foot and a half beyond it. EXT. IN THE CAMP - DAY Sallah, sweating profusely, has finished serving the line of Breakfasting Germans and now heads back to replace the kettle and get away. HUNGRY GERMAN Water. Bring us water. INT. MAP ROOM Indy is on his knees at the miniature city, a special tape measure in his hand. Indy has the tape strung from Belloq's mistaken spot to his own correct spot. He gets his reading, leaps up and crosses to the erect staff. He pulls the headpiece off the staff and hides it in his robes. He quickly breaks the wooden staff in two and throws the pieces behind a pile of debris. Then he moves quickly to beneath the skylight. INDY (stage whisper) Sallah. (he waits, then louder) Sallah! More waiting. Nothing. Indy looks around for some alternative means of escape. The room doesn't offer any. He looks up at the skylight again. INDY (loudest) Sallah! A long pause. Then something comes down. A makeshift rope. Really just a bunch of clothing tied together - tunics, robes, pants. But what we see first and most prominently, the first section of Indy's escape rope, is a bright Nazi flag. Indy beams and climbs. EXT. ABOVE THE MAP ROOM - DAY Indy sticks his head out the skylight, sees it clear and flops his body out. Sallah, crouching behind the oil drum, immediately starts pulling in the makeshift rope. Sallah stuffs the rope in the oil drum and the two men begin waking toward some tents. HUNGRY GERMAN (O.S.) Hey, you! More water over here! Sallah glances at Indy, Then hurries back in that direction. The Hungry German focuses on Indy. HUNGRY GERMAN Why aren't you at the digs? Come here! Indy bows in wild subservience and hurries off in the opposite direction. HUNGRY GERMAN (yelling after him, irritated) No, dummkopf, I said come! EXT. BETWEEN TWO TENTS - DAY Indy hustles between the tents. Up ahead, two German Officers stop to talk, blocking his exit. He moves along the side of one of the tents until he finds an opening and slips inside. INT. THE TENT Indy finds himself in a tent set up for rather comfortable living. He has just started to cross it when he hears a loud, excited grunting. He turns toward the sound. In the corner, tied to a chair and gagged is Marion. Indy rushes to her, snatches the gag from her mouth and embraces her. They kiss, deep and long. INDY I though you were dead. MARION They were throwing me around like a rag doll. INDY They must have switched baskets. Thank god for that! Bless those bastards. Have they hurt you? MARION No. Not since I got here. They just asked about you - what you knew. The Frenchman's got the hot's for me. I've been playing that along. Oh, Indy, get me out of here. Indy pulls out a knife and then stops suddenly, thinking. MARION What's wrong? INDY (putting the knife away) I have to leave you here for a little while. I know where the Ark is. If I take you out of here they'll start combing the place for us. MARION (louder) Cut me loose! INDY Keep your voice down. MARION (screaming) I said get me out of - Indy pops the gag back in her mouth. Her eyes widen in fury and she grunts obscenities at him. INDY Look, you don't know how glad I am to see you. And I don't like doing this. But the whole thing will be shot if you don't just sit here quietly. They haven't hurt you in the last twenty-four hours, they aren't going to start now. I'll be back to get you in no time. He kisses her forehead, jumps up and hurries out of the tent. EXT. SAND DUNE OUTSIDE DIGS - DAY With the digs behind them, Indy and Sallah run up to the ridge of the dune and over the top. At the bottom of the far side, Omar's truck is parked. Omar and his men are waiting. EXT. DIFFERENT DUNE - DAY This new spot gives Indy a higher, better view of the whole scene. Indy is using a surveyor's instrument to take a reading - WHAT HE SEES Looking through the instrument, Indy gets a line from the map room through the site where the Nazis are digging in the dunes to a spot several dunes over. We focus on that virgin spot of well-hidden sand as - INDY There! EXT. INDY'S DIG - DAY Omar's truck is parked at the spot just viewed from afar. Dunes rise on either side. One of Omar's men has been posted as a lookout up on a ridge. Everybody else - Indy, Sallah, Omar, and his men - have begun digging for the Wells of the Souls. DISSOLVE TO: SAME SCENE - NIGHT They continue to dig furiously, all of them drenched in sweat. The hole has grown but this is slow, back-breaking work. INT. COMMAND TENT - TANIS DIGS - NIGHT Belloq, SHLIEMANN the ranking Nazi, and Shliemann's Aide, GOBLER, come into the tent, which is full of charts and maps, drawings of the Ark, radio equipment, liquor and food. The men have been out digging for the Well all day. They are tired, discouraged, testy. In all matters, Gobler shows his alliance with Shliemann against Belloq with small looks and body language. The Frenchman has disappointed them and he is feeling the isolation of a scapegoat. Belloq gets himself a drink as Shliemann towels off his face. BELLOQ I cautioned you about being premature with that communiqu to Berlin. Archeology is not an exact science. If does not adhere to time schedules. SHLIEMANN The Fuhrer is not a patient man. He demands constant reports and he expects progress. You led me to believe - BELLOQ Nothing. I have made no promises. I said only that it looked very favorable. Perhaps the Ark will still be found in an adjoining chamber. Based on the information in our possession, my calculations were correct. Perhaps some bit of evidence still eludes us. Perhaps GOBLER Perhaps the girl can help us. Belloq shoots him an angry look. SHLIEMANN My feeling exactly. She was in possession of the original piece for years. She may know much. (really evil) If properly motivated... BELLOQ I tell you, she knows nothing useful. SHLIEMANN I'm surprised to find you squeamish. That is not your reputation. But it needn't concern you. I have the perfect man for this kind of work. Shliemann signals Gobler, who steps outside the tent a moment, calls someone and then reappears. Belloq looks warily at the entrance. After a moment Belzig enters, reeking villainy. When his eyes find Shliemann, his superior, he snaps a crisp "Heil, Hitler!" at him, holding his palm rigid a long time, exposing a burned scar in the prefect shape of the sun medallion. EXT. INDY'S DIG - NIGHT In the eerie conjunction of moonlight and torchlight, Indy and the other men step back in awe of their discovery: there, flush with the bottom of their pit, is a heavy stone entry door to an underground chamber. Special prying tools are produced. With two men assigned to each of the two long tools, they work in unison to open the vault. They open it a foot and the other men rush in to flop the heavy door completely open. Down inside, only blackness. The men quickly prostrate themselves around the edge of the entry to look inside. Indy and Sallah each take a torch and hold them down the hole. WHAT THEY SEE The Well of the Souls is a spooky chamber thirty feet deep. The walls are covered with hieroglyphics and carvings. The roof is supported intermittently by stone pillars, the closest of which hits the roof very near the entry hole. The Well is quite large; as Indy and Sallah wave their torches, more and more of the room is revealed. Now the far end of the chamber comes into view. There is a stone altar down there and on this elaborated carved platform is a stone chest, big enough to enclose the Lost Ark and protect it from the ravages of time. This altar appears to be the only place on the floor of the Well that is not covered by a strange, dark carpet of some kind. INDY The Ark must be in that stone case. What's that gray stuff all over the floor - He breaks off realizing exactly what that carpet is. He blanches. Indiana Jones blanches. Indy drops his torch to the floor of the Well. This is answered by the most horrific HISSING imaginable. WHAT HE SEES That think dark carpet is moving. It's alive. It's thousands and thousands of deadly poisonous snakes - Egyptian asps. And the only thing that seems capable of avoiding this venomous groundcover is the altar. The snakes ebb and flow near it, but never encroach on it, as though repelled by some invisible force. Indy shakes his head and talks to himself. INDY Why snakes? Why did it have to be snakes? Anything else. After a moment of this, he stops. He gathers his energy and resolve and gets back to the task. SALLAH Asps. Very dangerous. Where Indy's torch had landed is a circle of snake-free floor. The snakes hate the flame; they stay away. INDY Lots of torches. And oil. I want a landing strip down there. INT. THE WELL OF THE SOULS Fifteen torches have been dropped to the floor of the chamber, combining to make a good-sized clear zone. Smoke begins to fill the room. Several canisters of oil have been lowered into this space. Now, a large wooden crate is lowered slowly by rope. Rope handles are attached to each end of the crate. Up at the hole, Indy gives Sallah a reassuring pat, takes a breath, and swings carefully onto a rope hanging from the hole. Despite his care, he swings a bit and his feet hit the stone pillar which is so near the entry. Surprisingly, the pillar actually moves a bit, showering a light rain of crumbled stone to the floor below. Indy lands on the floor of the Well. He looks at the altar over a sea of undulating death. He picks up an oil canister and splashes two parallel lines of oil and lights them. A path six feet wide begins to open to the altar. Behind Indy, Sallah comes quickly down the rope. We begin to INTERCUT all the action in the Well from here on with insert shots of the snakes outside the flames. Snakes and snakes. We see: snakes piled and entwined six inches deep; mother snakes laying snake eggs; snake eggs hatching little snakes; snakes cannibalizing other snakes. INT. MARION'S TENT Belloq has been talking to the still-bound Marion. He has removed her gag. He is impatient, angry, uncomfortable. Caught between two forces. BELLOQ Believe me, you made a mistake. If you would just give me something to placate them. Some bit of information. MARION I swear to you, I know nothing more. I have no loyalty to Jones. He's brought me only trouble. He wants to believe her. BELLOQ I cannot control them. Marion's frightened look shifts suddenly to the entrance of the tent. There are new arrivals there - Shliemann, Gobler and Belzig. Belzig carries a black leather case. He steps forward and smiles at Marion. BELZIG We meet again, Fraulein. EXT. INDY'S DIG - JUST BEFORE DAWN The sky is just beginning to lighten over the dunes to the east, making dangerously obvious the thin column of smoke rising from the entrance to the Well. Omar and his men are peering through the smoke down into the Well. INT. THE WELL OF THE SOULS Indy and Sallah are on the altar. Pushing together with all their strength, the heavy stone top of the protective chest begins to slide away. Indy and Sallah exchange slightly wary but very excited looks, then continue to push. As the Ark begins to be exposed, the air seems to almost vibrate, to become electrostatically charged. We hear what sounds like a low HUM. The sea of snakes around the altar draws back further from this presence. As the top of the stone chest is pushed completely off and slams down beside it, we see THE LOST ARK OF THE COVENANT. It is awesomely beautiful, breathtaking. 4 feet long, 2.5 feet wide and 2.5 feet high. It's height, however, is increased by the two sculptured gold angels mounted facing each other on the top. Though the body of the Ark is acacia wood, it has been overlaid with gold. An elaborate gold crown surrounds the top edge and gold carrying rings are attached to each corner. Sallah is mesmerized by the sight. His hand starts to reach out and touch one of the angels, but Indy grabs it. INDY Don't touch it! Never touch it! The wooden crate stands open next to the stone chest. Now Indy extracts the wooden poles from its rings and begins fitting them through the rings in the Ark. This takes some maneuvering by the two men, but soon they are able to lift the Ark clear of the stone chest and into the wooden crate. They extract the poles, fasten the top of the crate and stick the poles through the rings of the wooden crate. They start back toward the space under the hole. The fire strips have begun to dwindle, as have some of the torches. The snakes move slowly in toward the clear spaces. Indy and Sallah eye them nervously as they hurry along with their heavy load. Under the hole, they hurriedly attach ropes to the wooden crate and it is pulled up. Indy's concentration is on the tide of snakes. INDY Hurry up! Why did it have to be snakes? Sallah takes the next rope and climbs quickly out of the Well. Indy has picked up a torch and now throws it at a pool of snakes who are too close for his comfort. He turns and takes hold of the exit rope. He gives it a first tug and it falls down into the Well, landing partly beyond the ring of fire where is instantly disappears in a tangle of angry, hissing asps. Indy looks up at the hole. INDY What the - Smiling down at him from the perimeter of the entry are Belloq, Shliemann and Gobler. BELLOQ Why, Dr. Jones, whatever are you doing in such a nasty place? Belloq and the Germans laugh. INDY Why don't you fellows come down here? I'll show you. BELLOQ No thank you, my friend. (he glances around him) I think we are all very comfortable up here. EXT. INDY'S DIG - DAWN Sunlight is flooding this tableau: Sallah, Omar and his men are being held at bay by ten armed Nazis. The wooden crate sits safely nearby. Belzig and another Nazi have the gagged Marion held in their rough grasp. BELLOQ (down to Indy) After all these years, it is most considerate of you to aid me in this way. As Belloq speaks, Shliemann exchanges a look with Belzig. Belzig smiles and takes the gag from Marion's mouth. INT. WELLS OF THE SOULS Shliemann smiles down at Indy. SHLIEMANN I'm afraid we must be going now, Dr. Jones. Our prize is awaited in Berlin. But I do not wish to leave you down in that awful place... (he give a sign) ...all alone. Belzig and the Nazi move Marion to the hole and, to Belloq's surprise, push her in. Marion falls thirty feet screaming. Indy drops his torch, braces, and catches her! Her weight knocks him to the ground, almost into the snakes. She looks around at the snakes, clinging to him more desperately as he struggles to his feet trying to unload her. MARION Don't put me down! Up at the hole, there's plenty of dissension. BELLOQ The girl was mine! SHLIEMANN She is of no use to us. Only our mission for the Fuhrer matters. Shliemann glances meaningfully around at the other Nazis. SHLIEMANN I wonder sometimes, Monsieur, if you have that clearly in mind. Belloq feels how much he is the outsider, his own vulnerability. He backs down with the wisdom of survival. He turns to look down at Indy and Marion. His manner is gallant. BELLOQ Goodbye, mademoiselle. (a pause, then with respect) Indiana Jones... adieu! Belloq and the others step back from the hole and unseen Nazis slam the heavy stone door into place. Marion screams. Her scream is accompanied by - A huge WHOOSH! as air is sucked out and the chamber is sealed. Half of the torches still burning go out with the sound. The remaining torches continue to extinguish at punctuating intervals throughout the following action and the snakes immediately flood into the newly-darkened spaces. Indy puts Marion down and snatches up two burning torches. He hands one to Marion. INDY Don't panic. There's plenty of time for that later. Wave that at anything that slithers. Indy holds his torch out like a lantern and begins a slow O- turn, his eyes peering into the gloom, examining every inch of wall and ceiling. MARION What are you doing? INDY Just watch the floor. Reminded of the encroaching snakes, Marion waves her torch at the nearest edge of their circle. She looks faint. Indy continues his slow turn. MARION Whatever you're doing, do it faster. INDY (he spots something) There! His head whips around, looking at the pillars around the room. He sees what he wants. He grabs one of the oil canisters, looks back to the spot on the wall he's chosen and splashes oil on the floor in that direction, then lights it. A path opens toward that wall. INDY Come on! Marion is frozen in her spot. Indy drags her after him. He splashes oil the rest of the way to the wall. It lights and Indy pulls Marion over to the wall. He pours the remaining oil in a circle around them, creating a safe zone there. INDY Stay here! MARION (grabbing him) Where are you going? INDY I'll be back in a minute. We're going through this wall. Marion looks at the wall, which looks like all the rest to her. She thinks he's crazy. INDY Just keep your eyes open and get ready to run. No matter what happens to me. MARION (panicked) What do you mean? Too late. Indy runs back through the path of flames to the center of the room. Snakes strike as his flying heels. Indy reaches the base of the pillar which he touched briefly on his original descent. He uses his torch to clear away the scattered snakes climbing on it, then pulls out his whip. He draws it back, then wraps is solidly around the pillar 15 feet up. With the torch in his mouth, he begins climbing the pillar. It moves ominously under his weight. The last two torches still burning on the floor go out. Now the only light in the chamber is provided by the torches held by Indy and Marion and the dwindling oil flames. Snakes move in and surround the base of Indy's pillar. The path between Marion and the center of the room is overrun. The circle of flame around Marion is dying down. She looks beyond it with terror-widened eyes, then up through the increasing smoke at the distant Indy. Near the top of the pillar, Indy's hands strain along his taut whip, which he has moves higher. A snake slithers into view there, inches from Indy's straining face. Indy turns his head so the torch in his mouth can burn it. The snake falls from the pillar. Indy's torch is dwindling. Indy works his body around so that he is on the side of the pillar away from Marion. The pillar moves, showering dust. Indy looks at the chamber wall five feet away, takes a breath and swings his legs up against it. He is now braced between pillar and wall. MARION (O.S.) (screaming) Where are you?! Snakes are moving in force up the pillar toward Indy's dwindling torch. Indy grasps the pillar for dear life, grimaces with exertion and pushes against the wall with all he's got. The pillar begins to break loose of the ceiling, then stops. Indy's eyes are on the torch. It is just a spot of flame now. Snakes are sliding up toward his hands. Indy again pushes against the wall and the torch falls out of his mouth. The pillar goes! In the dim light, we see it fall like a tree directly at Marion. Indy rides it down. The top hits the wall three feet from a cringing Marion and smashes through to a black chamber beyond. Indy flies off into the darkness. Gone. Marion clutches her torch at the black hole. MARION Indy! Where are you?! Please Lord! There is a moment that seems an eternity, then Indy appears like an apparition out of the void. INDY Come on! He grabs her and helps her over the remains of the wall into - INT. THE CATACOMBS The winding string of connected chambers is revealed to them only a few feet at a time as their torch lights the way. MARION The snakes... are they here? INDY I guess not. I think I'd be dead. MARION Do you know where you're going? INDY Absolutely. MARION Thank god. Where? INDY Out. They round a corner and flush a covey of bats. Marion screams. INDY Don't do that. It scares me. Marion gives him a look. They round a corner and begin a walk through a maze of chambers that present for their inspection: moldering mummies and stacked sarcophagi; a room decorated with a thousand human skulls; a wall crawling with huge scarabaeid beetles. Marion is quite naturally a nervous wreck; she jumps when Indy grabs her suddenly and points. INDY Look! WHAT THEY SEE There, coming through the crack in the corner of the next chamber, is white blessed sunlight. EXT. THE TANIS DIGS - NEAR AIRSTRIP - DAY Indy and Marion peek out into the light from the shadows of an abandoned excavation. Before them is the improvised airstrip serving the digs: a crude runway, a tent supply depot, two fuel tank trucks. Down by the fuel trucks a German Mechanic is looking skyward. Now Indy and Marion look there too, drawn by the roaring sound of - A Flying Wing, which is circling over the digs in preparation to landing. Now a new figure approaches the German Mechanic. It is Gobler; he yells to the mechanic, indicating the plane. GOBLER Get is gassed immediately! It has an important cargo to take out! In the distance, the Flying Wing lands and rolls toward the men. Gobler spins and heads back toward the main camp, which is hidden from view by a rise. Indy and Marion watch him go. INDY When the Ark gets loaded, we're already going to be on that plane. The Flying Wing rolls up into the space near the fuel trucks. The German Mechanic puts blue blocks in front of the tires as the engines continue to roar. Indy and Marion run in a crouch to a hiding spot closer to the plane, near the supply tent. Suddenly, a Second German Mechanic appears behind them. He is as surprised as they are, but recovers quickly and swings a big monkey wrench at Indy. Indy grabs the swinging arm and the two men tumble out into the open, wrestling. Marion remains hidden, moving fast among the crates. The first German Mechanic, who is just pulling the fuel hose from the tank truck to the plane, sees the combatants and runs to help his countryman. He is almost upon them when Indy puts the Second German away with a devastating left - right - left combination. He turns to find the first German Mechanic flying at him. The roll toward the rear of the Flying Wing and its lethally spinning reversed propellers. In the cockpit of the Flying Wing, the Pilot has been fiddling with his gauges just prior to shutting off his engines. Now he notices the fight going on outside. The fistfight between Indy and the German Mechanic has taken on a new stomach-tightening dimension. The men are fighting and flailing in and out between the spinning props at the back of the plane's wings. Each man comes within inches of becoming instant mincemeat. The Pilot slides away the top of his cockpit and stands up. He pulls a Luger from his side and points it, waiting for a clear shot at Indy. The German Mechanic kicks Indy away from him and the Pilot aims his pistol. Suddenly, Marion appears behind the Pilot, standing on the opposite wing, and bashes him over the head with one of the blue blocks that was holding the tires. The Pilot drops down into the cockpit, his body falling on the throttle. The engines roar louder, revving up. The plane begins to roll, rotating around its one still- blocked set of tires. Marion grabs onto the cockpit to keep from slipping into the props. She bends into the cockpit, trying to pull the Pilot's body off the throttle. No luck. She grimaces and climbs inside. Her shoulder bumps the top of the cockpit; it slides tightly shut above her. Under the moving wing, Indy delivers a knockout rightcross to the German Mechanic which sends him staggering back toward a roaring propeller. Indy's grimace registers the man's demise and a fine mist of blood wafts toward him. Indy spins toward the sound of crumpling metal and sees - The other prop of the Flying Wing slice into a tank truck. The airplane fuel inside floods out onto the pavement, surrounding the plane. Indy backpedals away from the plane, his eyes searching the scene for Marion. Suddenly, he is shocked to see her in the cockpit. He runs toward her, skidding through the gasoline. INDY Get out! Get out! Marion is struggling with the top of the cockpit. She can't budge it. She's trapped. EXT. THE COMMAND TENT - DAY Three Armed Nazis stand guard around the wooden crate containing the Ark. It is sitting near the flopped-open entrance to the Command Tent and there is furious activity going on here. Belloq, Shliemann, Gobler, Belzig and assorted Aides are packing up all the papers and personal items in preparation for a hasty departure. A large crowd of Arab Diggers is milling about among the tents. They all want to get a look at the Ark. Sallah is among them. All at once, there is a earthshaking explosion. Al eyes turn toward the rise that hides the airstrip. A huge fireball floats into view over there. Everyone starts running toward it. Shliemann yells at Belzig and the Armed Nazis. SHLIEMANN Stay with the Ark! EXT. THE RISE ABOVE AIRSTRIP - DAY Almost all the Arabs and Germans in the digs have congregated here and are staring at the burning remains of the Flying Wing. Belloq and Shliemann arrive just as the second fuel truck blows up. The concussion knocks many of the observers flat. Belloq, Shliemann and Gobler watch the scene in alarm. SHLIEMANN Sabotage! BELLOQ We must get the Ark away from this place immediately! SHLIEMANN (to Gobler) Have it put on the truck. We'll fly out of Cairo. Gobler snaps his heels, turns to go. SHLIEMANN And Gobler - (Gobler stops) I want plenty of protection. Gobler nods and runs off. Shliemann heads back toward camp. Belloq hesitates a long moment, studying the burning wreckage with an odd, suspicious look. Finally, he turns and leaves, passing a nearby stack of barrels. When he has passed, Sallah appears from among the barrels. He searches the crowd for his people and starts a broken field run along some tents to avoid a group of Germans and is running flat-out when someone sticks out a leg and sends him flipping. Sallah, dust all over his face, looks angrily toward the concealed culprit. At once, a flashing white grin splits his darkened face. Indy and Marion, splotched with soot and oil, are hiding in the flap of a tent. Sallah runs into their arms and the three embrace warmly. When they break - SALLAH Holy smoke, my friends! I am so pleased you are not dead. MARION Us too. SALLAH (suddenly remembering) The Ark! They're taking it on a truck to Cairo. INDY Where is it? Sallah gestures to follow and all three run off stealthily through the mostly deserted camp. EXT. AMONG THE TENTS - DAY Sallah, Indy and Marion run into a hiding spot behind some water barrels near the Command Tent. They peek out at this activity - In the big space near the Command Tent is parked an open German staff car; inside is a

surveyor

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

within a fraction of an inch of the tiny hole in its sun. The edge of the sunlight moving across the miniature city is still a good two feet beyond the spot Belloq has settled on. And now that line of light is broken by the shadow of an ornate sun at the top of the staff. Indy's face reflects his concentration. And then his immense pleasure. He sees what he came for. Out of the miniature city, one small building is being lit by a tiny beam of sunlight in the center of the shadow of the metal sun. And by some trick of ancient artistry, this one building responds to the sunlight like none of the others. The golden light permeates it: it seems to glow. The building is in a direct line with Belloq's - all the Frenchman's other calculations were right - but it is a foot and a half beyond it. EXT. IN THE CAMP - DAY Sallah, sweating profusely, has finished serving the line of Breakfasting Germans and now heads back to replace the kettle and get away. HUNGRY GERMAN Water. Bring us water. INT. MAP ROOM Indy is on his knees at the miniature city, a special tape measure in his hand. Indy has the tape strung from Belloq's mistaken spot to his own correct spot. He gets his reading, leaps up and crosses to the erect staff. He pulls the headpiece off the staff and hides it in his robes. He quickly breaks the wooden staff in two and throws the pieces behind a pile of debris. Then he moves quickly to beneath the skylight. INDY (stage whisper) Sallah. (he waits, then louder) Sallah! More waiting. Nothing. Indy looks around for some alternative means of escape. The room doesn't offer any. He looks up at the skylight again. INDY (loudest) Sallah! A long pause. Then something comes down. A makeshift rope. Really just a bunch of clothing tied together - tunics, robes, pants. But what we see first and most prominently, the first section of Indy's escape rope, is a bright Nazi flag. Indy beams and climbs. EXT. ABOVE THE MAP ROOM - DAY Indy sticks his head out the skylight, sees it clear and flops his body out. Sallah, crouching behind the oil drum, immediately starts pulling in the makeshift rope. Sallah stuffs the rope in the oil drum and the two men begin waking toward some tents. HUNGRY GERMAN (O.S.) Hey, you! More water over here! Sallah glances at Indy, Then hurries back in that direction. The Hungry German focuses on Indy. HUNGRY GERMAN Why aren't you at the digs? Come here! Indy bows in wild subservience and hurries off in the opposite direction. HUNGRY GERMAN (yelling after him, irritated) No, dummkopf, I said come! EXT. BETWEEN TWO TENTS - DAY Indy hustles between the tents. Up ahead, two German Officers stop to talk, blocking his exit. He moves along the side of one of the tents until he finds an opening and slips inside. INT. THE TENT Indy finds himself in a tent set up for rather comfortable living. He has just started to cross it when he hears a loud, excited grunting. He turns toward the sound. In the corner, tied to a chair and gagged is Marion. Indy rushes to her, snatches the gag from her mouth and embraces her. They kiss, deep and long. INDY I though you were dead. MARION They were throwing me around like a rag doll. INDY They must have switched baskets. Thank god for that! Bless those bastards. Have they hurt you? MARION No. Not since I got here. They just asked about you - what you knew. The Frenchman's got the hot's for me. I've been playing that along. Oh, Indy, get me out of here. Indy pulls out a knife and then stops suddenly, thinking. MARION What's wrong? INDY (putting the knife away) I have to leave you here for a little while. I know where the Ark is. If I take you out of here they'll start combing the place for us. MARION (louder) Cut me loose! INDY Keep your voice down. MARION (screaming) I said get me out of - Indy pops the gag back in her mouth. Her eyes widen in fury and she grunts obscenities at him. INDY Look, you don't know how glad I am to see you. And I don't like doing this. But the whole thing will be shot if you don't just sit here quietly. They haven't hurt you in the last twenty-four hours, they aren't going to start now. I'll be back to get you in no time. He kisses her forehead, jumps up and hurries out of the tent. EXT. SAND DUNE OUTSIDE DIGS - DAY With the digs behind them, Indy and Sallah run up to the ridge of the dune and over the top. At the bottom of the far side, Omar's truck is parked. Omar and his men are waiting. EXT. DIFFERENT DUNE - DAY This new spot gives Indy a higher, better view of the whole scene. Indy is using a surveyor's instrument to take a reading - WHAT HE SEES Looking through the instrument, Indy gets a line from the map room through the site where the Nazis are digging in the dunes to a spot several dunes over. We focus on that virgin spot of well-hidden sand as - INDY There! EXT. INDY'S DIG - DAY Omar's truck is parked at the spot just viewed from afar. Dunes rise on either side. One of Omar's men has been posted as a lookout up on a ridge. Everybody else - Indy, Sallah, Omar, and his men - have begun digging for the Wells of the Souls. DISSOLVE TO: SAME SCENE - NIGHT They continue to dig furiously, all of them drenched in sweat. The hole has grown but this is slow, back-breaking work. INT. COMMAND TENT - TANIS DIGS - NIGHT Belloq, SHLIEMANN the ranking Nazi, and Shliemann's Aide, GOBLER, come into the tent, which is full of charts and maps, drawings of the Ark, radio equipment, liquor and food. The men have been out digging for the Well all day. They are tired, discouraged, testy. In all matters, Gobler shows his alliance with Shliemann against Belloq with small looks and body language. The Frenchman has disappointed them and he is feeling the isolation of a scapegoat. Belloq gets himself a drink as Shliemann towels off his face. BELLOQ I cautioned you about being premature with that communiqu to Berlin. Archeology is not an exact science. If does not adhere to time schedules. SHLIEMANN The Fuhrer is not a patient man. He demands constant reports and he expects progress. You led me to believe - BELLOQ Nothing. I have made no promises. I said only that it looked very favorable. Perhaps the Ark will still be found in an adjoining chamber. Based on the information in our possession, my calculations were correct. Perhaps some bit of evidence still eludes us. Perhaps GOBLER Perhaps the girl can help us. Belloq shoots him an angry look. SHLIEMANN My feeling exactly. She was in possession of the original piece for years. She may know much. (really evil) If properly motivated... BELLOQ I tell you, she knows nothing useful. SHLIEMANN I'm surprised to find you squeamish. That is not your reputation. But it needn't concern you. I have the perfect man for this kind of work. Shliemann signals Gobler, who steps outside the tent a moment, calls someone and then reappears. Belloq looks warily at the entrance. After a moment Belzig enters, reeking villainy. When his eyes find Shliemann, his superior, he snaps a crisp "Heil, Hitler!" at him, holding his palm rigid a long time, exposing a burned scar in the prefect shape of the sun medallion. EXT. INDY'S DIG - NIGHT In the eerie conjunction of moonlight and torchlight, Indy and the other men step back in awe of their discovery: there, flush with the bottom of their pit, is a heavy stone entry door to an underground chamber. Special prying tools are produced. With two men assigned to each of the two long tools, they work in unison to open the vault. They open it a foot and the other men rush in to flop the heavy door completely open. Down inside, only blackness. The men quickly prostrate themselves around the edge of the entry to look inside. Indy and Sallah each take a torch and hold them down the hole. WHAT THEY SEE The Well of the Souls is a spooky chamber thirty feet deep. The walls are covered with hieroglyphics and carvings. The roof is supported intermittently by stone pillars, the closest of which hits the roof very near the entry hole. The Well is quite large; as Indy and Sallah wave their torches, more and more of the room is revealed. Now the far end of the chamber comes into view. There is a stone altar down there and on this elaborated carved platform is a stone chest, big enough to enclose the Lost Ark and protect it from the ravages of time. This altar appears to be the only place on the floor of the Well that is not covered by a strange, dark carpet of some kind. INDY The Ark must be in that stone case. What's that gray stuff all over the floor - He breaks off realizing exactly what that carpet is. He blanches. Indiana Jones blanches. Indy drops his torch to the floor of the Well. This is answered by the most horrific HISSING imaginable. WHAT HE SEES That think dark carpet is moving. It's alive. It's thousands and thousands of deadly poisonous snakes - Egyptian asps. And the only thing that seems capable of avoiding this venomous groundcover is the altar. The snakes ebb and flow near it, but never encroach on it, as though repelled by some invisible force. Indy shakes his head and talks to himself. INDY Why snakes? Why did it have to be snakes? Anything else. After a moment of this, he stops. He gathers his energy and resolve and gets back to the task. SALLAH Asps. Very dangerous. Where Indy's torch had landed is a circle of snake-free floor. The snakes hate the flame; they stay away. INDY Lots of torches. And oil. I want a landing strip down there. INT. THE WELL OF THE SOULS Fifteen torches have been dropped to the floor of the chamber, combining to make a good-sized clear zone. Smoke begins to fill the room. Several canisters of oil have been lowered into this space. Now, a large wooden crate is lowered slowly by rope. Rope handles are attached to each end of the crate. Up at the hole, Indy gives Sallah a reassuring pat, takes a breath, and swings carefully onto a rope hanging from the hole. Despite his care, he swings a bit and his feet hit the stone pillar which is so near the entry. Surprisingly, the pillar actually moves a bit, showering a light rain of crumbled stone to the floor below. Indy lands on the floor of the Well. He looks at the altar over a sea of undulating death. He picks up an oil canister and splashes two parallel lines of oil and lights them. A path six feet wide begins to open to the altar. Behind Indy, Sallah comes quickly down the rope. We begin to INTERCUT all the action in the Well from here on with insert shots of the snakes outside the flames. Snakes and snakes. We see: snakes piled and entwined six inches deep; mother snakes laying snake eggs; snake eggs hatching little snakes; snakes cannibalizing other snakes. INT. MARION'S TENT Belloq has been talking to the still-bound Marion. He has removed her gag. He is impatient, angry, uncomfortable. Caught between two forces. BELLOQ Believe me, you made a mistake. If you would just give me something to placate them. Some bit of information. MARION I swear to you, I know nothing more. I have no loyalty to Jones. He's brought me only trouble. He wants to believe her. BELLOQ I cannot control them. Marion's frightened look shifts suddenly to the entrance of the tent. There are new arrivals there - Shliemann, Gobler and Belzig. Belzig carries a black leather case. He steps forward and smiles at Marion. BELZIG We meet again, Fraulein. EXT. INDY'S DIG - JUST BEFORE DAWN The sky is just beginning to lighten over the dunes to the east, making dangerously obvious the thin column of smoke rising from the entrance to the Well. Omar and his men are peering through the smoke down into the Well. INT. THE WELL OF THE SOULS Indy and Sallah are on the altar. Pushing together with all their strength, the heavy stone top of the protective chest begins to slide away. Indy and Sallah exchange slightly wary but very excited looks, then continue to push. As the Ark begins to be exposed, the air seems to almost vibrate, to become electrostatically charged. We hear what sounds like a low HUM. The sea of snakes around the altar draws back further from this presence. As the top of the stone chest is pushed completely off and slams down beside it, we see THE LOST ARK OF THE COVENANT. It is awesomely beautiful, breathtaking. 4 feet long, 2.5 feet wide and 2.5 feet high. It's height, however, is increased by the two sculptured gold angels mounted facing each other on the top. Though the body of the Ark is acacia wood, it has been overlaid with gold. An elaborate gold crown surrounds the top edge and gold carrying rings are attached to each corner. Sallah is mesmerized by the sight. His hand starts to reach out and touch one of the angels, but Indy grabs it. INDY Don't touch it! Never touch it! The wooden crate stands open next to the stone chest. Now Indy extracts the wooden poles from its rings and begins fitting them through the rings in the Ark. This takes some maneuvering by the two men, but soon they are able to lift the Ark clear of the stone chest and into the wooden crate. They extract the poles, fasten the top of the crate and stick the poles through the rings of the wooden crate. They start back toward the space under the hole. The fire strips have begun to dwindle, as have some of the torches. The snakes move slowly in toward the clear spaces. Indy and Sallah eye them nervously as they hurry along with their heavy load. Under the hole, they hurriedly attach ropes to the wooden crate and it is pulled up. Indy's concentration is on the tide of snakes. INDY Hurry up! Why did it have to be snakes? Sallah takes the next rope and climbs quickly out of the Well. Indy has picked up a torch and now throws it at a pool of snakes who are too close for his comfort. He turns and takes hold of the exit rope. He gives it a first tug and it falls down into the Well, landing partly beyond the ring of fire where is instantly disappears in a tangle of angry, hissing asps. Indy looks up at the hole. INDY What the - Smiling down at him from the perimeter of the entry are Belloq, Shliemann and Gobler. BELLOQ Why, Dr. Jones, whatever are you doing in such a nasty place? Belloq and the Germans laugh. INDY Why don't you fellows come down here? I'll show you. BELLOQ No thank you, my friend. (he glances around him) I think we are all very comfortable up here. EXT. INDY'S DIG - DAWN Sunlight is flooding this tableau: Sallah, Omar and his men are being held at bay by ten armed Nazis. The wooden crate sits safely nearby. Belzig and another Nazi have the gagged Marion held in their rough grasp. BELLOQ (down to Indy) After all these years, it is most considerate of you to aid me in this way. As Belloq speaks, Shliemann exchanges a look with Belzig. Belzig smiles and takes the gag from Marion's mouth. INT. WELLS OF THE SOULS Shliemann smiles down at Indy. SHLIEMANN I'm afraid we must be going now, Dr. Jones. Our prize is awaited in Berlin. But I do not wish to leave you down in that awful place... (he give a sign) ...all alone. Belzig and the Nazi move Marion to the hole and, to Belloq's surprise, push her in. Marion falls thirty feet screaming. Indy drops his torch, braces, and catches her! Her weight knocks him to the ground, almost into the snakes. She looks around at the snakes, clinging to him more desperately as he struggles to his feet trying to unload her. MARION Don't put me down! Up at the hole, there's plenty of dissension. BELLOQ The girl was mine! SHLIEMANN She is of no use to us. Only our mission for the Fuhrer matters. Shliemann glances meaningfully around at the other Nazis. SHLIEMANN I wonder sometimes, Monsieur, if you have that clearly in mind. Belloq feels how much he is the outsider, his own vulnerability. He backs down with the wisdom of survival. He turns to look down at Indy and Marion. His manner is gallant. BELLOQ Goodbye, mademoiselle. (a pause, then with respect) Indiana Jones... adieu! Belloq and the others step back from the hole and unseen Nazis slam the heavy stone door into place. Marion screams. Her scream is accompanied by - A huge WHOOSH! as air is sucked out and the chamber is sealed. Half of the torches still burning go out with the sound. The remaining torches continue to extinguish at punctuating intervals throughout the following action and the snakes immediately flood into the newly-darkened spaces. Indy puts Marion down and snatches up two burning torches. He hands one to Marion. INDY Don't panic. There's plenty of time for that later. Wave that at anything that slithers. Indy holds his torch out like a lantern and begins a slow O- turn, his eyes peering into the gloom, examining every inch of wall and ceiling. MARION What are you doing? INDY Just watch the floor. Reminded of the encroaching snakes, Marion waves her torch at the nearest edge of their circle. She looks faint. Indy continues his slow turn. MARION Whatever you're doing, do it faster. INDY (he spots something) There! His head whips around, looking at the pillars around the room. He sees what he wants. He grabs one of the oil canisters, looks back to the spot on the wall he's chosen and splashes oil on the floor in that direction, then lights it. A path opens toward that wall. INDY Come on! Marion is frozen in her spot. Indy drags her after him. He splashes oil the rest of the way to the wall. It lights and Indy pulls Marion over to the wall. He pours the remaining oil in a circle around them, creating a safe zone there. INDY Stay here! MARION (grabbing him) Where are you going? INDY I'll be back in a minute. We're going through this wall. Marion looks at the wall, which looks like all the rest to her. She thinks he's crazy. INDY Just keep your eyes open and get ready to run. No matter what happens to me. MARION (panicked) What do you mean? Too late. Indy runs back through the path of flames to the center of the room. Snakes strike as his flying heels. Indy reaches the base of the pillar which he touched briefly on his original descent. He uses his torch to clear away the scattered snakes climbing on it, then pulls out his whip. He draws it back, then wraps is solidly around the pillar 15 feet up. With the torch in his mouth, he begins climbing the pillar. It moves ominously under his weight. The last two torches still burning on the floor go out. Now the only light in the chamber is provided by the torches held by Indy and Marion and the dwindling oil flames. Snakes move in and surround the base of Indy's pillar. The path between Marion and the center of the room is overrun. The circle of flame around Marion is dying down. She looks beyond it with terror-widened eyes, then up through the increasing smoke at the distant Indy. Near the top of the pillar, Indy's hands strain along his taut whip, which he has moves higher. A snake slithers into view there, inches from Indy's straining face. Indy turns his head so the torch in his mouth can burn it. The snake falls from the pillar. Indy's torch is dwindling. Indy works his body around so that he is on the side of the pillar away from Marion. The pillar moves, showering dust. Indy looks at the chamber wall five feet away, takes a breath and swings his legs up against it. He is now braced between pillar and wall. MARION (O.S.) (screaming) Where are you?! Snakes are moving in force up the pillar toward Indy's dwindling torch. Indy grasps the pillar for dear life, grimaces with exertion and pushes against the wall with all he's got. The pillar begins to break loose of the ceiling, then stops. Indy's eyes are on the torch. It is just a spot of flame now. Snakes are sliding up toward his hands. Indy again pushes against the wall and the torch falls out of his mouth. The pillar goes! In the dim light, we see it fall like a tree directly at Marion. Indy rides it down. The top hits the wall three feet from a cringing Marion and smashes through to a black chamber beyond. Indy flies off into the darkness. Gone. Marion clutches her torch at the black hole. MARION Indy! Where are you?! Please Lord! There is a moment that seems an eternity, then Indy appears like an apparition out of the void. INDY Come on! He grabs her and helps her over the remains of the wall into - INT. THE CATACOMBS The winding string of connected chambers is revealed to them only a few feet at a time as their torch lights the way. MARION The snakes... are they here? INDY I guess not. I think I'd be dead. MARION Do you know where you're going? INDY Absolutely. MARION Thank god. Where? INDY Out. They round a corner and flush a covey of bats. Marion screams. INDY Don't do that. It scares me. Marion gives him a look. They round a corner and begin a walk through a maze of chambers that present for their inspection: moldering mummies and stacked sarcophagi; a room decorated with a thousand human skulls; a wall crawling with huge scarabaeid beetles. Marion is quite naturally a nervous wreck; she jumps when Indy grabs her suddenly and points. INDY Look! WHAT THEY SEE There, coming through the crack in the corner of the next chamber, is white blessed sunlight. EXT. THE TANIS DIGS - NEAR AIRSTRIP - DAY Indy and Marion peek out into the light from the shadows of an abandoned excavation. Before them is the improvised airstrip serving the digs: a crude runway, a tent supply depot, two fuel tank trucks. Down by the fuel trucks a German Mechanic is looking skyward. Now Indy and Marion look there too, drawn by the roaring sound of - A Flying Wing, which is circling over the digs in preparation to landing. Now a new figure approaches the German Mechanic. It is Gobler; he yells to the mechanic, indicating the plane. GOBLER Get is gassed immediately! It has an important cargo to take out! In the distance, the Flying Wing lands and rolls toward the men. Gobler spins and heads back toward the main camp, which is hidden from view by a rise. Indy and Marion watch him go. INDY When the Ark gets loaded, we're already going to be on that plane. The Flying Wing rolls up into the space near the fuel trucks. The German Mechanic puts blue blocks in front of the tires as the engines continue to roar. Indy and Marion run in a crouch to a hiding spot closer to the plane, near the supply tent. Suddenly, a Second German Mechanic appears behind them. He is as surprised as they are, but recovers quickly and swings a big monkey wrench at Indy. Indy grabs the swinging arm and the two men tumble out into the open, wrestling. Marion remains hidden, moving fast among the crates. The first German Mechanic, who is just pulling the fuel hose from the tank truck to the plane, sees the combatants and runs to help his countryman. He is almost upon them when Indy puts the Second German away with a devastating left - right - left combination. He turns to find the first German Mechanic flying at him. The roll toward the rear of the Flying Wing and its lethally spinning reversed propellers. In the cockpit of the Flying Wing, the Pilot has been fiddling with his gauges just prior to shutting off his engines. Now he notices the fight going on outside. The fistfight between Indy and the German Mechanic has taken on a new stomach-tightening dimension. The men are fighting and flailing in and out between the spinning props at the back of the plane's wings. Each man comes within inches of becoming instant mincemeat. The Pilot slides away the top of his cockpit and stands up. He pulls a Luger from his side and points it, waiting for a clear shot at Indy. The German Mechanic kicks Indy away from him and the Pilot aims his pistol. Suddenly, Marion appears behind the Pilot, standing on the opposite wing, and bashes him over the head with one of the blue blocks that was holding the tires. The Pilot drops down into the cockpit, his body falling on the throttle. The engines roar louder, revving up. The plane begins to roll, rotating around its one still- blocked set of tires. Marion grabs onto the cockpit to keep from slipping into the props. She bends into the cockpit, trying to pull the Pilot's body off the throttle. No luck. She grimaces and climbs inside. Her shoulder bumps the top of the cockpit; it slides tightly shut above her. Under the moving wing, Indy delivers a knockout rightcross to the German Mechanic which sends him staggering back toward a roaring propeller. Indy's grimace registers the man's demise and a fine mist of blood wafts toward him. Indy spins toward the sound of crumpling metal and sees - The other prop of the Flying Wing slice into a tank truck. The airplane fuel inside floods out onto the pavement, surrounding the plane. Indy backpedals away from the plane, his eyes searching the scene for Marion. Suddenly, he is shocked to see her in the cockpit. He runs toward her, skidding through the gasoline. INDY Get out! Get out! Marion is struggling with the top of the cockpit. She can't budge it. She's trapped. EXT. THE COMMAND TENT - DAY Three Armed Nazis stand guard around the wooden crate containing the Ark. It is sitting near the flopped-open entrance to the Command Tent and there is furious activity going on here. Belloq, Shliemann, Gobler, Belzig and assorted Aides are packing up all the papers and personal items in preparation for a hasty departure. A large crowd of Arab Diggers is milling about among the tents. They all want to get a look at the Ark. Sallah is among them. All at once, there is a earthshaking explosion. Al eyes turn toward the rise that hides the airstrip. A huge fireball floats into view over there. Everyone starts running toward it. Shliemann yells at Belzig and the Armed Nazis. SHLIEMANN Stay with the Ark! EXT. THE RISE ABOVE AIRSTRIP - DAY Almost all the Arabs and Germans in the digs have congregated here and are staring at the burning remains of the Flying Wing. Belloq and Shliemann arrive just as the second fuel truck blows up. The concussion knocks many of the observers flat. Belloq, Shliemann and Gobler watch the scene in alarm. SHLIEMANN Sabotage! BELLOQ We must get the Ark away from this place immediately! SHLIEMANN (to Gobler) Have it put on the truck. We'll fly out of Cairo. Gobler snaps his heels, turns to go. SHLIEMANN And Gobler - (Gobler stops) I want plenty of protection. Gobler nods and runs off. Shliemann heads back toward camp. Belloq hesitates a long moment, studying the burning wreckage with an odd, suspicious look. Finally, he turns and leaves, passing a nearby stack of barrels. When he has passed, Sallah appears from among the barrels. He searches the crowd for his people and starts a broken field run along some tents to avoid a group of Germans and is running flat-out when someone sticks out a leg and sends him flipping. Sallah, dust all over his face, looks angrily toward the concealed culprit. At once, a flashing white grin splits his darkened face. Indy and Marion, splotched with soot and oil, are hiding in the flap of a tent. Sallah runs into their arms and the three embrace warmly. When they break - SALLAH Holy smoke, my friends! I am so pleased you are not dead. MARION Us too. SALLAH (suddenly remembering) The Ark! They're taking it on a truck to Cairo. INDY Where is it? Sallah gestures to follow and all three run off stealthily through the mostly deserted camp. EXT. AMONG THE TENTS - DAY Sallah, Indy and Marion run into a hiding spot behind some water barrels near the Command Tent. They peek out at this activity - In the big space near the Command Tent is parked an open German staff car; inside is a

frenchman

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

within a fraction of an inch of the tiny hole in its sun. The edge of the sunlight moving across the miniature city is still a good two feet beyond the spot Belloq has settled on. And now that line of light is broken by the shadow of an ornate sun at the top of the staff. Indy's face reflects his concentration. And then his immense pleasure. He sees what he came for. Out of the miniature city, one small building is being lit by a tiny beam of sunlight in the center of the shadow of the metal sun. And by some trick of ancient artistry, this one building responds to the sunlight like none of the others. The golden light permeates it: it seems to glow. The building is in a direct line with Belloq's - all the Frenchman's other calculations were right - but it is a foot and a half beyond it. EXT. IN THE CAMP - DAY Sallah, sweating profusely, has finished serving the line of Breakfasting Germans and now heads back to replace the kettle and get away. HUNGRY GERMAN Water. Bring us water. INT. MAP ROOM Indy is on his knees at the miniature city, a special tape measure in his hand. Indy has the tape strung from Belloq's mistaken spot to his own correct spot. He gets his reading, leaps up and crosses to the erect staff. He pulls the headpiece off the staff and hides it in his robes. He quickly breaks the wooden staff in two and throws the pieces behind a pile of debris. Then he moves quickly to beneath the skylight. INDY (stage whisper) Sallah. (he waits, then louder) Sallah! More waiting. Nothing. Indy looks around for some alternative means of escape. The room doesn't offer any. He looks up at the skylight again. INDY (loudest) Sallah! A long pause. Then something comes down. A makeshift rope. Really just a bunch of clothing tied together - tunics, robes, pants. But what we see first and most prominently, the first section of Indy's escape rope, is a bright Nazi flag. Indy beams and climbs. EXT. ABOVE THE MAP ROOM - DAY Indy sticks his head out the skylight, sees it clear and flops his body out. Sallah, crouching behind the oil drum, immediately starts pulling in the makeshift rope. Sallah stuffs the rope in the oil drum and the two men begin waking toward some tents. HUNGRY GERMAN (O.S.) Hey, you! More water over here! Sallah glances at Indy, Then hurries back in that direction. The Hungry German focuses on Indy. HUNGRY GERMAN Why aren't you at the digs? Come here! Indy bows in wild subservience and hurries off in the opposite direction. HUNGRY GERMAN (yelling after him, irritated) No, dummkopf, I said come! EXT. BETWEEN TWO TENTS - DAY Indy hustles between the tents. Up ahead, two German Officers stop to talk, blocking his exit. He moves along the side of one of the tents until he finds an opening and slips inside. INT. THE TENT Indy finds himself in a tent set up for rather comfortable living. He has just started to cross it when he hears a loud, excited grunting. He turns toward the sound. In the corner, tied to a chair and gagged is Marion. Indy rushes to her, snatches the gag from her mouth and embraces her. They kiss, deep and long. INDY I though you were dead. MARION They were throwing me around like a rag doll. INDY They must have switched baskets. Thank god for that! Bless those bastards. Have they hurt you? MARION No. Not since I got here. They just asked about you - what you knew. The Frenchman's got the hot's for me. I've been playing that along. Oh, Indy, get me out of here. Indy pulls out a knife and then stops suddenly, thinking. MARION What's wrong? INDY (putting the knife away) I have to leave you here for a little while. I know where the Ark is. If I take you out of here they'll start combing the place for us. MARION (louder) Cut me loose! INDY Keep your voice down. MARION (screaming) I said get me out of - Indy pops the gag back in her mouth. Her eyes widen in fury and she grunts obscenities at him. INDY Look, you don't know how glad I am to see you. And I don't like doing this. But the whole thing will be shot if you don't just sit here quietly. They haven't hurt you in the last twenty-four hours, they aren't going to start now. I'll be back to get you in no time. He kisses her forehead, jumps up and hurries out of the tent. EXT. SAND DUNE OUTSIDE DIGS - DAY With the digs behind them, Indy and Sallah run up to the ridge of the dune and over the top. At the bottom of the far side, Omar's truck is parked. Omar and his men are waiting. EXT. DIFFERENT DUNE - DAY This new spot gives Indy a higher, better view of the whole scene. Indy is using a surveyor's instrument to take a reading - WHAT HE SEES Looking through the instrument, Indy gets a line from the map room through the site where the Nazis are digging in the dunes to a spot several dunes over. We focus on that virgin spot of well-hidden sand as - INDY There! EXT. INDY'S DIG - DAY Omar's truck is parked at the spot just viewed from afar. Dunes rise on either side. One of Omar's men has been posted as a lookout up on a ridge. Everybody else - Indy, Sallah, Omar, and his men - have begun digging for the Wells of the Souls. DISSOLVE TO: SAME SCENE - NIGHT They continue to dig furiously, all of them drenched in sweat. The hole has grown but this is slow, back-breaking work. INT. COMMAND TENT - TANIS DIGS - NIGHT Belloq, SHLIEMANN the ranking Nazi, and Shliemann's Aide, GOBLER, come into the tent, which is full of charts and maps, drawings of the Ark, radio equipment, liquor and food. The men have been out digging for the Well all day. They are tired, discouraged, testy. In all matters, Gobler shows his alliance with Shliemann against Belloq with small looks and body language. The Frenchman has disappointed them and he is feeling the isolation of a scapegoat. Belloq gets himself a drink as Shliemann towels off his face. BELLOQ I cautioned you about being premature with that communiqu to Berlin. Archeology is not an exact science. If does not adhere to time schedules. SHLIEMANN The Fuhrer is not a patient man. He demands constant reports and he expects progress. You led me to believe - BELLOQ Nothing. I have made no promises. I said only that it looked very favorable. Perhaps the Ark will still be found in an adjoining chamber. Based on the information in our possession, my calculations were correct. Perhaps some bit of evidence still eludes us. Perhaps GOBLER Perhaps the girl can help us. Belloq shoots him an angry look. SHLIEMANN My feeling exactly. She was in possession of the original piece for years. She may know much. (really evil) If properly motivated... BELLOQ I tell you, she knows nothing useful. SHLIEMANN I'm surprised to find you squeamish. That is not your reputation. But it needn't concern you. I have the perfect man for this kind of work. Shliemann signals Gobler, who steps outside the tent a moment, calls someone and then reappears. Belloq looks warily at the entrance. After a moment Belzig enters, reeking villainy. When his eyes find Shliemann, his superior, he snaps a crisp "Heil, Hitler!" at him, holding his palm rigid a long time, exposing a burned scar in the prefect shape of the sun medallion. EXT. INDY'S DIG - NIGHT In the eerie conjunction of moonlight and torchlight, Indy and the other men step back in awe of their discovery: there, flush with the bottom of their pit, is a heavy stone entry door to an underground chamber. Special prying tools are produced. With two men assigned to each of the two long tools, they work in unison to open the vault. They open it a foot and the other men rush in to flop the heavy door completely open. Down inside, only blackness. The men quickly prostrate themselves around the edge of the entry to look inside. Indy and Sallah each take a torch and hold them down the hole. WHAT THEY SEE The Well of the Souls is a spooky chamber thirty feet deep. The walls are covered with hieroglyphics and carvings. The roof is supported intermittently by stone pillars, the closest of which hits the roof very near the entry hole. The Well is quite large; as Indy and Sallah wave their torches, more and more of the room is revealed. Now the far end of the chamber comes into view. There is a stone altar down there and on this elaborated carved platform is a stone chest, big enough to enclose the Lost Ark and protect it from the ravages of time. This altar appears to be the only place on the floor of the Well that is not covered by a strange, dark carpet of some kind. INDY The Ark must be in that stone case. What's that gray stuff all over the floor - He breaks off realizing exactly what that carpet is. He blanches. Indiana Jones blanches. Indy drops his torch to the floor of the Well. This is answered by the most horrific HISSING imaginable. WHAT HE SEES That think dark carpet is moving. It's alive. It's thousands and thousands of deadly poisonous snakes - Egyptian asps. And the only thing that seems capable of avoiding this venomous groundcover is the altar. The snakes ebb and flow near it, but never encroach on it, as though repelled by some invisible force. Indy shakes his head and talks to himself. INDY Why snakes? Why did it have to be snakes? Anything else. After a moment of this, he stops. He gathers his energy and resolve and gets back to the task. SALLAH Asps. Very dangerous. Where Indy's torch had landed is a circle of snake-free floor. The snakes hate the flame; they stay away. INDY Lots of torches. And oil. I want a landing strip down there. INT. THE WELL OF THE SOULS Fifteen torches have been dropped to the floor of the chamber, combining to make a good-sized clear zone. Smoke begins to fill the room. Several canisters of oil have been lowered into this space. Now, a large wooden crate is lowered slowly by rope. Rope handles are attached to each end of the crate. Up at the hole, Indy gives Sallah a reassuring pat, takes a breath, and swings carefully onto a rope hanging from the hole. Despite his care, he swings a bit and his feet hit the stone pillar which is so near the entry. Surprisingly, the pillar actually moves a bit, showering a light rain of crumbled stone to the floor below. Indy lands on the floor of the Well. He looks at the altar over a sea of undulating death. He picks up an oil canister and splashes two parallel lines of oil and lights them. A path six feet wide begins to open to the altar. Behind Indy, Sallah comes quickly down the rope. We begin to INTERCUT all the action in the Well from here on with insert shots of the snakes outside the flames. Snakes and snakes. We see: snakes piled and entwined six inches deep; mother snakes laying snake eggs; snake eggs hatching little snakes; snakes cannibalizing other snakes. INT. MARION'S TENT Belloq has been talking to the still-bound Marion. He has removed her gag. He is impatient, angry, uncomfortable. Caught between two forces. BELLOQ Believe me, you made a mistake. If you would just give me something to placate them. Some bit of information. MARION I swear to you, I know nothing more. I have no loyalty to Jones. He's brought me only trouble. He wants to believe her. BELLOQ I cannot control them. Marion's frightened look shifts suddenly to the entrance of the tent. There are new arrivals there - Shliemann, Gobler and Belzig. Belzig carries a black leather case. He steps forward and smiles at Marion. BELZIG We meet again, Fraulein. EXT. INDY'S DIG - JUST BEFORE DAWN The sky is just beginning to lighten over the dunes to the east, making dangerously obvious the thin column of smoke rising from the entrance to the Well. Omar and his men are peering through the smoke down into the Well. INT. THE WELL OF THE SOULS Indy and Sallah are on the altar. Pushing together with all their strength, the heavy stone top of the protective chest begins to slide away. Indy and Sallah exchange slightly wary but very excited looks, then continue to push. As the Ark begins to be exposed, the air seems to almost vibrate, to become electrostatically charged. We hear what sounds like a low HUM. The sea of snakes around the altar draws back further from this presence. As the top of the stone chest is pushed completely off and slams down beside it, we see THE LOST ARK OF THE COVENANT. It is awesomely beautiful, breathtaking. 4 feet long, 2.5 feet wide and 2.5 feet high. It's height, however, is increased by the two sculptured gold angels mounted facing each other on the top. Though the body of the Ark is acacia wood, it has been overlaid with gold. An elaborate gold crown surrounds the top edge and gold carrying rings are attached to each corner. Sallah is mesmerized by the sight. His hand starts to reach out and touch one of the angels, but Indy grabs it. INDY Don't touch it! Never touch it! The wooden crate stands open next to the stone chest. Now Indy extracts the wooden poles from its rings and begins fitting them through the rings in the Ark. This takes some maneuvering by the two men, but soon they are able to lift the Ark clear of the stone chest and into the wooden crate. They extract the poles, fasten the top of the crate and stick the poles through the rings of the wooden crate. They start back toward the space under the hole. The fire strips have begun to dwindle, as have some of the torches. The snakes move slowly in toward the clear spaces. Indy and Sallah eye them nervously as they hurry along with their heavy load. Under the hole, they hurriedly attach ropes to the wooden crate and it is pulled up. Indy's concentration is on the tide of snakes. INDY Hurry up! Why did it have to be snakes? Sallah takes the next rope and climbs quickly out of the Well. Indy has picked up a torch and now throws it at a pool of snakes who are too close for his comfort. He turns and takes hold of the exit rope. He gives it a first tug and it falls down into the Well, landing partly beyond the ring of fire where is instantly disappears in a tangle of angry, hissing asps. Indy looks up at the hole. INDY What the - Smiling down at him from the perimeter of the entry are Belloq, Shliemann and Gobler. BELLOQ Why, Dr. Jones, whatever are you doing in such a nasty place? Belloq and the Germans laugh. INDY Why don't you fellows come down here? I'll show you. BELLOQ No thank you, my friend. (he glances around him) I think we are all very comfortable up here. EXT. INDY'S DIG - DAWN Sunlight is flooding this tableau: Sallah, Omar and his men are being held at bay by ten armed Nazis. The wooden crate sits safely nearby. Belzig and another Nazi have the gagged Marion held in their rough grasp. BELLOQ (down to Indy) After all these years, it is most considerate of you to aid me in this way. As Belloq speaks, Shliemann exchanges a look with Belzig. Belzig smiles and takes the gag from Marion's mouth. INT. WELLS OF THE SOULS Shliemann smiles down at Indy. SHLIEMANN I'm afraid we must be going now, Dr. Jones. Our prize is awaited in Berlin. But I do not wish to leave you down in that awful place... (he give a sign) ...all alone. Belzig and the Nazi move Marion to the hole and, to Belloq's surprise, push her in. Marion falls thirty feet screaming. Indy drops his torch, braces, and catches her! Her weight knocks him to the ground, almost into the snakes. She looks around at the snakes, clinging to him more desperately as he struggles to his feet trying to unload her. MARION Don't put me down! Up at the hole, there's plenty of dissension. BELLOQ The girl was mine! SHLIEMANN She is of no use to us. Only our mission for the Fuhrer matters. Shliemann glances meaningfully around at the other Nazis. SHLIEMANN I wonder sometimes, Monsieur, if you have that clearly in mind. Belloq feels how much he is the outsider, his own vulnerability. He backs down with the wisdom of survival. He turns to look down at Indy and Marion. His manner is gallant. BELLOQ Goodbye, mademoiselle. (a pause, then with respect) Indiana Jones... adieu! Belloq and the others step back from the hole and unseen Nazis slam the heavy stone door into place. Marion screams. Her scream is accompanied by - A huge WHOOSH! as air is sucked out and the chamber is sealed. Half of the torches still burning go out with the sound. The remaining torches continue to extinguish at punctuating intervals throughout the following action and the snakes immediately flood into the newly-darkened spaces. Indy puts Marion down and snatches up two burning torches. He hands one to Marion. INDY Don't panic. There's plenty of time for that later. Wave that at anything that slithers. Indy holds his torch out like a lantern and begins a slow O- turn, his eyes peering into the gloom, examining every inch of wall and ceiling. MARION What are you doing? INDY Just watch the floor. Reminded of the encroaching snakes, Marion waves her torch at the nearest edge of their circle. She looks faint. Indy continues his slow turn. MARION Whatever you're doing, do it faster. INDY (he spots something) There! His head whips around, looking at the pillars around the room. He sees what he wants. He grabs one of the oil canisters, looks back to the spot on the wall he's chosen and splashes oil on the floor in that direction, then lights it. A path opens toward that wall. INDY Come on! Marion is frozen in her spot. Indy drags her after him. He splashes oil the rest of the way to the wall. It lights and Indy pulls Marion over to the wall. He pours the remaining oil in a circle around them, creating a safe zone there. INDY Stay here! MARION (grabbing him) Where are you going? INDY I'll be back in a minute. We're going through this wall. Marion looks at the wall, which looks like all the rest to her. She thinks he's crazy. INDY Just keep your eyes open and get ready to run. No matter what happens to me. MARION (panicked) What do you mean? Too late. Indy runs back through the path of flames to the center of the room. Snakes strike as his flying heels. Indy reaches the base of the pillar which he touched briefly on his original descent. He uses his torch to clear away the scattered snakes climbing on it, then pulls out his whip. He draws it back, then wraps is solidly around the pillar 15 feet up. With the torch in his mouth, he begins climbing the pillar. It moves ominously under his weight. The last two torches still burning on the floor go out. Now the only light in the chamber is provided by the torches held by Indy and Marion and the dwindling oil flames. Snakes move in and surround the base of Indy's pillar. The path between Marion and the center of the room is overrun. The circle of flame around Marion is dying down. She looks beyond it with terror-widened eyes, then up through the increasing smoke at the distant Indy. Near the top of the pillar, Indy's hands strain along his taut whip, which he has moves higher. A snake slithers into view there, inches from Indy's straining face. Indy turns his head so the torch in his mouth can burn it. The snake falls from the pillar. Indy's torch is dwindling. Indy works his body around so that he is on the side of the pillar away from Marion. The pillar moves, showering dust. Indy looks at the chamber wall five feet away, takes a breath and swings his legs up against it. He is now braced between pillar and wall. MARION (O.S.) (screaming) Where are you?! Snakes are moving in force up the pillar toward Indy's dwindling torch. Indy grasps the pillar for dear life, grimaces with exertion and pushes against the wall with all he's got. The pillar begins to break loose of the ceiling, then stops. Indy's eyes are on the torch. It is just a spot of flame now. Snakes are sliding up toward his hands. Indy again pushes against the wall and the torch falls out of his mouth. The pillar goes! In the dim light, we see it fall like a tree directly at Marion. Indy rides it down. The top hits the wall three feet from a cringing Marion and smashes through to a black chamber beyond. Indy flies off into the darkness. Gone. Marion clutches her torch at the black hole. MARION Indy! Where are you?! Please Lord! There is a moment that seems an eternity, then Indy appears like an apparition out of the void. INDY Come on! He grabs her and helps her over the remains of the wall into - INT. THE CATACOMBS The winding string of connected chambers is revealed to them only a few feet at a time as their torch lights the way. MARION The snakes... are they here? INDY I guess not. I think I'd be dead. MARION Do you know where you're going? INDY Absolutely. MARION Thank god. Where? INDY Out. They round a corner and flush a covey of bats. Marion screams. INDY Don't do that. It scares me. Marion gives him a look. They round a corner and begin a walk through a maze of chambers that present for their inspection: moldering mummies and stacked sarcophagi; a room decorated with a thousand human skulls; a wall crawling with huge scarabaeid beetles. Marion is quite naturally a nervous wreck; she jumps when Indy grabs her suddenly and points. INDY Look! WHAT THEY SEE There, coming through the crack in the corner of the next chamber, is white blessed sunlight. EXT. THE TANIS DIGS - NEAR AIRSTRIP - DAY Indy and Marion peek out into the light from the shadows of an abandoned excavation. Before them is the improvised airstrip serving the digs: a crude runway, a tent supply depot, two fuel tank trucks. Down by the fuel trucks a German Mechanic is looking skyward. Now Indy and Marion look there too, drawn by the roaring sound of - A Flying Wing, which is circling over the digs in preparation to landing. Now a new figure approaches the German Mechanic. It is Gobler; he yells to the mechanic, indicating the plane. GOBLER Get is gassed immediately! It has an important cargo to take out! In the distance, the Flying Wing lands and rolls toward the men. Gobler spins and heads back toward the main camp, which is hidden from view by a rise. Indy and Marion watch him go. INDY When the Ark gets loaded, we're already going to be on that plane. The Flying Wing rolls up into the space near the fuel trucks. The German Mechanic puts blue blocks in front of the tires as the engines continue to roar. Indy and Marion run in a crouch to a hiding spot closer to the plane, near the supply tent. Suddenly, a Second German Mechanic appears behind them. He is as surprised as they are, but recovers quickly and swings a big monkey wrench at Indy. Indy grabs the swinging arm and the two men tumble out into the open, wrestling. Marion remains hidden, moving fast among the crates. The first German Mechanic, who is just pulling the fuel hose from the tank truck to the plane, sees the combatants and runs to help his countryman. He is almost upon them when Indy puts the Second German away with a devastating left - right - left combination. He turns to find the first German Mechanic flying at him. The roll toward the rear of the Flying Wing and its lethally spinning reversed propellers. In the cockpit of the Flying Wing, the Pilot has been fiddling with his gauges just prior to shutting off his engines. Now he notices the fight going on outside. The fistfight between Indy and the German Mechanic has taken on a new stomach-tightening dimension. The men are fighting and flailing in and out between the spinning props at the back of the plane's wings. Each man comes within inches of becoming instant mincemeat. The Pilot slides away the top of his cockpit and stands up. He pulls a Luger from his side and points it, waiting for a clear shot at Indy. The German Mechanic kicks Indy away from him and the Pilot aims his pistol. Suddenly, Marion appears behind the Pilot, standing on the opposite wing, and bashes him over the head with one of the blue blocks that was holding the tires. The Pilot drops down into the cockpit, his body falling on the throttle. The engines roar louder, revving up. The plane begins to roll, rotating around its one still- blocked set of tires. Marion grabs onto the cockpit to keep from slipping into the props. She bends into the cockpit, trying to pull the Pilot's body off the throttle. No luck. She grimaces and climbs inside. Her shoulder bumps the top of the cockpit; it slides tightly shut above her. Under the moving wing, Indy delivers a knockout rightcross to the German Mechanic which sends him staggering back toward a roaring propeller. Indy's grimace registers the man's demise and a fine mist of blood wafts toward him. Indy spins toward the sound of crumpling metal and sees - The other prop of the Flying Wing slice into a tank truck. The airplane fuel inside floods out onto the pavement, surrounding the plane. Indy backpedals away from the plane, his eyes searching the scene for Marion. Suddenly, he is shocked to see her in the cockpit. He runs toward her, skidding through the gasoline. INDY Get out! Get out! Marion is struggling with the top of the cockpit. She can't budge it. She's trapped. EXT. THE COMMAND TENT - DAY Three Armed Nazis stand guard around the wooden crate containing the Ark. It is sitting near the flopped-open entrance to the Command Tent and there is furious activity going on here. Belloq, Shliemann, Gobler, Belzig and assorted Aides are packing up all the papers and personal items in preparation for a hasty departure. A large crowd of Arab Diggers is milling about among the tents. They all want to get a look at the Ark. Sallah is among them. All at once, there is a earthshaking explosion. Al eyes turn toward the rise that hides the airstrip. A huge fireball floats into view over there. Everyone starts running toward it. Shliemann yells at Belzig and the Armed Nazis. SHLIEMANN Stay with the Ark! EXT. THE RISE ABOVE AIRSTRIP - DAY Almost all the Arabs and Germans in the digs have congregated here and are staring at the burning remains of the Flying Wing. Belloq and Shliemann arrive just as the second fuel truck blows up. The concussion knocks many of the observers flat. Belloq, Shliemann and Gobler watch the scene in alarm. SHLIEMANN Sabotage! BELLOQ We must get the Ark away from this place immediately! SHLIEMANN (to Gobler) Have it put on the truck. We'll fly out of Cairo. Gobler snaps his heels, turns to go. SHLIEMANN And Gobler - (Gobler stops) I want plenty of protection. Gobler nods and runs off. Shliemann heads back toward camp. Belloq hesitates a long moment, studying the burning wreckage with an odd, suspicious look. Finally, he turns and leaves, passing a nearby stack of barrels. When he has passed, Sallah appears from among the barrels. He searches the crowd for his people and starts a broken field run along some tents to avoid a group of Germans and is running flat-out when someone sticks out a leg and sends him flipping. Sallah, dust all over his face, looks angrily toward the concealed culprit. At once, a flashing white grin splits his darkened face. Indy and Marion, splotched with soot and oil, are hiding in the flap of a tent. Sallah runs into their arms and the three embrace warmly. When they break - SALLAH Holy smoke, my friends! I am so pleased you are not dead. MARION Us too. SALLAH (suddenly remembering) The Ark! They're taking it on a truck to Cairo. INDY Where is it? Sallah gestures to follow and all three run off stealthily through the mostly deserted camp. EXT. AMONG THE TENTS - DAY Sallah, Indy and Marion run into a hiding spot behind some water barrels near the Command Tent. They peek out at this activity - In the big space near the Command Tent is parked an open German staff car; inside is a

movement

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

within a fraction of an inch of the tiny hole in its sun. The edge of the sunlight moving across the miniature city is still a good two feet beyond the spot Belloq has settled on. And now that line of light is broken by the shadow of an ornate sun at the top of the staff. Indy's face reflects his concentration. And then his immense pleasure. He sees what he came for. Out of the miniature city, one small building is being lit by a tiny beam of sunlight in the center of the shadow of the metal sun. And by some trick of ancient artistry, this one building responds to the sunlight like none of the others. The golden light permeates it: it seems to glow. The building is in a direct line with Belloq's - all the Frenchman's other calculations were right - but it is a foot and a half beyond it. EXT. IN THE CAMP - DAY Sallah, sweating profusely, has finished serving the line of Breakfasting Germans and now heads back to replace the kettle and get away. HUNGRY GERMAN Water. Bring us water. INT. MAP ROOM Indy is on his knees at the miniature city, a special tape measure in his hand. Indy has the tape strung from Belloq's mistaken spot to his own correct spot. He gets his reading, leaps up and crosses to the erect staff. He pulls the headpiece off the staff and hides it in his robes. He quickly breaks the wooden staff in two and throws the pieces behind a pile of debris. Then he moves quickly to beneath the skylight. INDY (stage whisper) Sallah. (he waits, then louder) Sallah! More waiting. Nothing. Indy looks around for some alternative means of escape. The room doesn't offer any. He looks up at the skylight again. INDY (loudest) Sallah! A long pause. Then something comes down. A makeshift rope. Really just a bunch of clothing tied together - tunics, robes, pants. But what we see first and most prominently, the first section of Indy's escape rope, is a bright Nazi flag. Indy beams and climbs. EXT. ABOVE THE MAP ROOM - DAY Indy sticks his head out the skylight, sees it clear and flops his body out. Sallah, crouching behind the oil drum, immediately starts pulling in the makeshift rope. Sallah stuffs the rope in the oil drum and the two men begin waking toward some tents. HUNGRY GERMAN (O.S.) Hey, you! More water over here! Sallah glances at Indy, Then hurries back in that direction. The Hungry German focuses on Indy. HUNGRY GERMAN Why aren't you at the digs? Come here! Indy bows in wild subservience and hurries off in the opposite direction. HUNGRY GERMAN (yelling after him, irritated) No, dummkopf, I said come! EXT. BETWEEN TWO TENTS - DAY Indy hustles between the tents. Up ahead, two German Officers stop to talk, blocking his exit. He moves along the side of one of the tents until he finds an opening and slips inside. INT. THE TENT Indy finds himself in a tent set up for rather comfortable living. He has just started to cross it when he hears a loud, excited grunting. He turns toward the sound. In the corner, tied to a chair and gagged is Marion. Indy rushes to her, snatches the gag from her mouth and embraces her. They kiss, deep and long. INDY I though you were dead. MARION They were throwing me around like a rag doll. INDY They must have switched baskets. Thank god for that! Bless those bastards. Have they hurt you? MARION No. Not since I got here. They just asked about you - what you knew. The Frenchman's got the hot's for me. I've been playing that along. Oh, Indy, get me out of here. Indy pulls out a knife and then stops suddenly, thinking. MARION What's wrong? INDY (putting the knife away) I have to leave you here for a little while. I know where the Ark is. If I take you out of here they'll start combing the place for us. MARION (louder) Cut me loose! INDY Keep your voice down. MARION (screaming) I said get me out of - Indy pops the gag back in her mouth. Her eyes widen in fury and she grunts obscenities at him. INDY Look, you don't know how glad I am to see you. And I don't like doing this. But the whole thing will be shot if you don't just sit here quietly. They haven't hurt you in the last twenty-four hours, they aren't going to start now. I'll be back to get you in no time. He kisses her forehead, jumps up and hurries out of the tent. EXT. SAND DUNE OUTSIDE DIGS - DAY With the digs behind them, Indy and Sallah run up to the ridge of the dune and over the top. At the bottom of the far side, Omar's truck is parked. Omar and his men are waiting. EXT. DIFFERENT DUNE - DAY This new spot gives Indy a higher, better view of the whole scene. Indy is using a surveyor's instrument to take a reading - WHAT HE SEES Looking through the instrument, Indy gets a line from the map room through the site where the Nazis are digging in the dunes to a spot several dunes over. We focus on that virgin spot of well-hidden sand as - INDY There! EXT. INDY'S DIG - DAY Omar's truck is parked at the spot just viewed from afar. Dunes rise on either side. One of Omar's men has been posted as a lookout up on a ridge. Everybody else - Indy, Sallah, Omar, and his men - have begun digging for the Wells of the Souls. DISSOLVE TO: SAME SCENE - NIGHT They continue to dig furiously, all of them drenched in sweat. The hole has grown but this is slow, back-breaking work. INT. COMMAND TENT - TANIS DIGS - NIGHT Belloq, SHLIEMANN the ranking Nazi, and Shliemann's Aide, GOBLER, come into the tent, which is full of charts and maps, drawings of the Ark, radio equipment, liquor and food. The men have been out digging for the Well all day. They are tired, discouraged, testy. In all matters, Gobler shows his alliance with Shliemann against Belloq with small looks and body language. The Frenchman has disappointed them and he is feeling the isolation of a scapegoat. Belloq gets himself a drink as Shliemann towels off his face. BELLOQ I cautioned you about being premature with that communiqu to Berlin. Archeology is not an exact science. If does not adhere to time schedules. SHLIEMANN The Fuhrer is not a patient man. He demands constant reports and he expects progress. You led me to believe - BELLOQ Nothing. I have made no promises. I said only that it looked very favorable. Perhaps the Ark will still be found in an adjoining chamber. Based on the information in our possession, my calculations were correct. Perhaps some bit of evidence still eludes us. Perhaps GOBLER Perhaps the girl can help us. Belloq shoots him an angry look. SHLIEMANN My feeling exactly. She was in possession of the original piece for years. She may know much. (really evil) If properly motivated... BELLOQ I tell you, she knows nothing useful. SHLIEMANN I'm surprised to find you squeamish. That is not your reputation. But it needn't concern you. I have the perfect man for this kind of work. Shliemann signals Gobler, who steps outside the tent a moment, calls someone and then reappears. Belloq looks warily at the entrance. After a moment Belzig enters, reeking villainy. When his eyes find Shliemann, his superior, he snaps a crisp "Heil, Hitler!" at him, holding his palm rigid a long time, exposing a burned scar in the prefect shape of the sun medallion. EXT. INDY'S DIG - NIGHT In the eerie conjunction of moonlight and torchlight, Indy and the other men step back in awe of their discovery: there, flush with the bottom of their pit, is a heavy stone entry door to an underground chamber. Special prying tools are produced. With two men assigned to each of the two long tools, they work in unison to open the vault. They open it a foot and the other men rush in to flop the heavy door completely open. Down inside, only blackness. The men quickly prostrate themselves around the edge of the entry to look inside. Indy and Sallah each take a torch and hold them down the hole. WHAT THEY SEE The Well of the Souls is a spooky chamber thirty feet deep. The walls are covered with hieroglyphics and carvings. The roof is supported intermittently by stone pillars, the closest of which hits the roof very near the entry hole. The Well is quite large; as Indy and Sallah wave their torches, more and more of the room is revealed. Now the far end of the chamber comes into view. There is a stone altar down there and on this elaborated carved platform is a stone chest, big enough to enclose the Lost Ark and protect it from the ravages of time. This altar appears to be the only place on the floor of the Well that is not covered by a strange, dark carpet of some kind. INDY The Ark must be in that stone case. What's that gray stuff all over the floor - He breaks off realizing exactly what that carpet is. He blanches. Indiana Jones blanches. Indy drops his torch to the floor of the Well. This is answered by the most horrific HISSING imaginable. WHAT HE SEES That think dark carpet is moving. It's alive. It's thousands and thousands of deadly poisonous snakes - Egyptian asps. And the only thing that seems capable of avoiding this venomous groundcover is the altar. The snakes ebb and flow near it, but never encroach on it, as though repelled by some invisible force. Indy shakes his head and talks to himself. INDY Why snakes? Why did it have to be snakes? Anything else. After a moment of this, he stops. He gathers his energy and resolve and gets back to the task. SALLAH Asps. Very dangerous. Where Indy's torch had landed is a circle of snake-free floor. The snakes hate the flame; they stay away. INDY Lots of torches. And oil. I want a landing strip down there. INT. THE WELL OF THE SOULS Fifteen torches have been dropped to the floor of the chamber, combining to make a good-sized clear zone. Smoke begins to fill the room. Several canisters of oil have been lowered into this space. Now, a large wooden crate is lowered slowly by rope. Rope handles are attached to each end of the crate. Up at the hole, Indy gives Sallah a reassuring pat, takes a breath, and swings carefully onto a rope hanging from the hole. Despite his care, he swings a bit and his feet hit the stone pillar which is so near the entry. Surprisingly, the pillar actually moves a bit, showering a light rain of crumbled stone to the floor below. Indy lands on the floor of the Well. He looks at the altar over a sea of undulating death. He picks up an oil canister and splashes two parallel lines of oil and lights them. A path six feet wide begins to open to the altar. Behind Indy, Sallah comes quickly down the rope. We begin to INTERCUT all the action in the Well from here on with insert shots of the snakes outside the flames. Snakes and snakes. We see: snakes piled and entwined six inches deep; mother snakes laying snake eggs; snake eggs hatching little snakes; snakes cannibalizing other snakes. INT. MARION'S TENT Belloq has been talking to the still-bound Marion. He has removed her gag. He is impatient, angry, uncomfortable. Caught between two forces. BELLOQ Believe me, you made a mistake. If you would just give me something to placate them. Some bit of information. MARION I swear to you, I know nothing more. I have no loyalty to Jones. He's brought me only trouble. He wants to believe her. BELLOQ I cannot control them. Marion's frightened look shifts suddenly to the entrance of the tent. There are new arrivals there - Shliemann, Gobler and Belzig. Belzig carries a black leather case. He steps forward and smiles at Marion. BELZIG We meet again, Fraulein. EXT. INDY'S DIG - JUST BEFORE DAWN The sky is just beginning to lighten over the dunes to the east, making dangerously obvious the thin column of smoke rising from the entrance to the Well. Omar and his men are peering through the smoke down into the Well. INT. THE WELL OF THE SOULS Indy and Sallah are on the altar. Pushing together with all their strength, the heavy stone top of the protective chest begins to slide away. Indy and Sallah exchange slightly wary but very excited looks, then continue to push. As the Ark begins to be exposed, the air seems to almost vibrate, to become electrostatically charged. We hear what sounds like a low HUM. The sea of snakes around the altar draws back further from this presence. As the top of the stone chest is pushed completely off and slams down beside it, we see THE LOST ARK OF THE COVENANT. It is awesomely beautiful, breathtaking. 4 feet long, 2.5 feet wide and 2.5 feet high. It's height, however, is increased by the two sculptured gold angels mounted facing each other on the top. Though the body of the Ark is acacia wood, it has been overlaid with gold. An elaborate gold crown surrounds the top edge and gold carrying rings are attached to each corner. Sallah is mesmerized by the sight. His hand starts to reach out and touch one of the angels, but Indy grabs it. INDY Don't touch it! Never touch it! The wooden crate stands open next to the stone chest. Now Indy extracts the wooden poles from its rings and begins fitting them through the rings in the Ark. This takes some maneuvering by the two men, but soon they are able to lift the Ark clear of the stone chest and into the wooden crate. They extract the poles, fasten the top of the crate and stick the poles through the rings of the wooden crate. They start back toward the space under the hole. The fire strips have begun to dwindle, as have some of the torches. The snakes move slowly in toward the clear spaces. Indy and Sallah eye them nervously as they hurry along with their heavy load. Under the hole, they hurriedly attach ropes to the wooden crate and it is pulled up. Indy's concentration is on the tide of snakes. INDY Hurry up! Why did it have to be snakes? Sallah takes the next rope and climbs quickly out of the Well. Indy has picked up a torch and now throws it at a pool of snakes who are too close for his comfort. He turns and takes hold of the exit rope. He gives it a first tug and it falls down into the Well, landing partly beyond the ring of fire where is instantly disappears in a tangle of angry, hissing asps. Indy looks up at the hole. INDY What the - Smiling down at him from the perimeter of the entry are Belloq, Shliemann and Gobler. BELLOQ Why, Dr. Jones, whatever are you doing in such a nasty place? Belloq and the Germans laugh. INDY Why don't you fellows come down here? I'll show you. BELLOQ No thank you, my friend. (he glances around him) I think we are all very comfortable up here. EXT. INDY'S DIG - DAWN Sunlight is flooding this tableau: Sallah, Omar and his men are being held at bay by ten armed Nazis. The wooden crate sits safely nearby. Belzig and another Nazi have the gagged Marion held in their rough grasp. BELLOQ (down to Indy) After all these years, it is most considerate of you to aid me in this way. As Belloq speaks, Shliemann exchanges a look with Belzig. Belzig smiles and takes the gag from Marion's mouth. INT. WELLS OF THE SOULS Shliemann smiles down at Indy. SHLIEMANN I'm afraid we must be going now, Dr. Jones. Our prize is awaited in Berlin. But I do not wish to leave you down in that awful place... (he give a sign) ...all alone. Belzig and the Nazi move Marion to the hole and, to Belloq's surprise, push her in. Marion falls thirty feet screaming. Indy drops his torch, braces, and catches her! Her weight knocks him to the ground, almost into the snakes. She looks around at the snakes, clinging to him more desperately as he struggles to his feet trying to unload her. MARION Don't put me down! Up at the hole, there's plenty of dissension. BELLOQ The girl was mine! SHLIEMANN She is of no use to us. Only our mission for the Fuhrer matters. Shliemann glances meaningfully around at the other Nazis. SHLIEMANN I wonder sometimes, Monsieur, if you have that clearly in mind. Belloq feels how much he is the outsider, his own vulnerability. He backs down with the wisdom of survival. He turns to look down at Indy and Marion. His manner is gallant. BELLOQ Goodbye, mademoiselle. (a pause, then with respect) Indiana Jones... adieu! Belloq and the others step back from the hole and unseen Nazis slam the heavy stone door into place. Marion screams. Her scream is accompanied by - A huge WHOOSH! as air is sucked out and the chamber is sealed. Half of the torches still burning go out with the sound. The remaining torches continue to extinguish at punctuating intervals throughout the following action and the snakes immediately flood into the newly-darkened spaces. Indy puts Marion down and snatches up two burning torches. He hands one to Marion. INDY Don't panic. There's plenty of time for that later. Wave that at anything that slithers. Indy holds his torch out like a lantern and begins a slow O- turn, his eyes peering into the gloom, examining every inch of wall and ceiling. MARION What are you doing? INDY Just watch the floor. Reminded of the encroaching snakes, Marion waves her torch at the nearest edge of their circle. She looks faint. Indy continues his slow turn. MARION Whatever you're doing, do it faster. INDY (he spots something) There! His head whips around, looking at the pillars around the room. He sees what he wants. He grabs one of the oil canisters, looks back to the spot on the wall he's chosen and splashes oil on the floor in that direction, then lights it. A path opens toward that wall. INDY Come on! Marion is frozen in her spot. Indy drags her after him. He splashes oil the rest of the way to the wall. It lights and Indy pulls Marion over to the wall. He pours the remaining oil in a circle around them, creating a safe zone there. INDY Stay here! MARION (grabbing him) Where are you going? INDY I'll be back in a minute. We're going through this wall. Marion looks at the wall, which looks like all the rest to her. She thinks he's crazy. INDY Just keep your eyes open and get ready to run. No matter what happens to me. MARION (panicked) What do you mean? Too late. Indy runs back through the path of flames to the center of the room. Snakes strike as his flying heels. Indy reaches the base of the pillar which he touched briefly on his original descent. He uses his torch to clear away the scattered snakes climbing on it, then pulls out his whip. He draws it back, then wraps is solidly around the pillar 15 feet up. With the torch in his mouth, he begins climbing the pillar. It moves ominously under his weight. The last two torches still burning on the floor go out. Now the only light in the chamber is provided by the torches held by Indy and Marion and the dwindling oil flames. Snakes move in and surround the base of Indy's pillar. The path between Marion and the center of the room is overrun. The circle of flame around Marion is dying down. She looks beyond it with terror-widened eyes, then up through the increasing smoke at the distant Indy. Near the top of the pillar, Indy's hands strain along his taut whip, which he has moves higher. A snake slithers into view there, inches from Indy's straining face. Indy turns his head so the torch in his mouth can burn it. The snake falls from the pillar. Indy's torch is dwindling. Indy works his body around so that he is on the side of the pillar away from Marion. The pillar moves, showering dust. Indy looks at the chamber wall five feet away, takes a breath and swings his legs up against it. He is now braced between pillar and wall. MARION (O.S.) (screaming) Where are you?! Snakes are moving in force up the pillar toward Indy's dwindling torch. Indy grasps the pillar for dear life, grimaces with exertion and pushes against the wall with all he's got. The pillar begins to break loose of the ceiling, then stops. Indy's eyes are on the torch. It is just a spot of flame now. Snakes are sliding up toward his hands. Indy again pushes against the wall and the torch falls out of his mouth. The pillar goes! In the dim light, we see it fall like a tree directly at Marion. Indy rides it down. The top hits the wall three feet from a cringing Marion and smashes through to a black chamber beyond. Indy flies off into the darkness. Gone. Marion clutches her torch at the black hole. MARION Indy! Where are you?! Please Lord! There is a moment that seems an eternity, then Indy appears like an apparition out of the void. INDY Come on! He grabs her and helps her over the remains of the wall into - INT. THE CATACOMBS The winding string of connected chambers is revealed to them only a few feet at a time as their torch lights the way. MARION The snakes... are they here? INDY I guess not. I think I'd be dead. MARION Do you know where you're going? INDY Absolutely. MARION Thank god. Where? INDY Out. They round a corner and flush a covey of bats. Marion screams. INDY Don't do that. It scares me. Marion gives him a look. They round a corner and begin a walk through a maze of chambers that present for their inspection: moldering mummies and stacked sarcophagi; a room decorated with a thousand human skulls; a wall crawling with huge scarabaeid beetles. Marion is quite naturally a nervous wreck; she jumps when Indy grabs her suddenly and points. INDY Look! WHAT THEY SEE There, coming through the crack in the corner of the next chamber, is white blessed sunlight. EXT. THE TANIS DIGS - NEAR AIRSTRIP - DAY Indy and Marion peek out into the light from the shadows of an abandoned excavation. Before them is the improvised airstrip serving the digs: a crude runway, a tent supply depot, two fuel tank trucks. Down by the fuel trucks a German Mechanic is looking skyward. Now Indy and Marion look there too, drawn by the roaring sound of - A Flying Wing, which is circling over the digs in preparation to landing. Now a new figure approaches the German Mechanic. It is Gobler; he yells to the mechanic, indicating the plane. GOBLER Get is gassed immediately! It has an important cargo to take out! In the distance, the Flying Wing lands and rolls toward the men. Gobler spins and heads back toward the main camp, which is hidden from view by a rise. Indy and Marion watch him go. INDY When the Ark gets loaded, we're already going to be on that plane. The Flying Wing rolls up into the space near the fuel trucks. The German Mechanic puts blue blocks in front of the tires as the engines continue to roar. Indy and Marion run in a crouch to a hiding spot closer to the plane, near the supply tent. Suddenly, a Second German Mechanic appears behind them. He is as surprised as they are, but recovers quickly and swings a big monkey wrench at Indy. Indy grabs the swinging arm and the two men tumble out into the open, wrestling. Marion remains hidden, moving fast among the crates. The first German Mechanic, who is just pulling the fuel hose from the tank truck to the plane, sees the combatants and runs to help his countryman. He is almost upon them when Indy puts the Second German away with a devastating left - right - left combination. He turns to find the first German Mechanic flying at him. The roll toward the rear of the Flying Wing and its lethally spinning reversed propellers. In the cockpit of the Flying Wing, the Pilot has been fiddling with his gauges just prior to shutting off his engines. Now he notices the fight going on outside. The fistfight between Indy and the German Mechanic has taken on a new stomach-tightening dimension. The men are fighting and flailing in and out between the spinning props at the back of the plane's wings. Each man comes within inches of becoming instant mincemeat. The Pilot slides away the top of his cockpit and stands up. He pulls a Luger from his side and points it, waiting for a clear shot at Indy. The German Mechanic kicks Indy away from him and the Pilot aims his pistol. Suddenly, Marion appears behind the Pilot, standing on the opposite wing, and bashes him over the head with one of the blue blocks that was holding the tires. The Pilot drops down into the cockpit, his body falling on the throttle. The engines roar louder, revving up. The plane begins to roll, rotating around its one still- blocked set of tires. Marion grabs onto the cockpit to keep from slipping into the props. She bends into the cockpit, trying to pull the Pilot's body off the throttle. No luck. She grimaces and climbs inside. Her shoulder bumps the top of the cockpit; it slides tightly shut above her. Under the moving wing, Indy delivers a knockout rightcross to the German Mechanic which sends him staggering back toward a roaring propeller. Indy's grimace registers the man's demise and a fine mist of blood wafts toward him. Indy spins toward the sound of crumpling metal and sees - The other prop of the Flying Wing slice into a tank truck. The airplane fuel inside floods out onto the pavement, surrounding the plane. Indy backpedals away from the plane, his eyes searching the scene for Marion. Suddenly, he is shocked to see her in the cockpit. He runs toward her, skidding through the gasoline. INDY Get out! Get out! Marion is struggling with the top of the cockpit. She can't budge it. She's trapped. EXT. THE COMMAND TENT - DAY Three Armed Nazis stand guard around the wooden crate containing the Ark. It is sitting near the flopped-open entrance to the Command Tent and there is furious activity going on here. Belloq, Shliemann, Gobler, Belzig and assorted Aides are packing up all the papers and personal items in preparation for a hasty departure. A large crowd of Arab Diggers is milling about among the tents. They all want to get a look at the Ark. Sallah is among them. All at once, there is a earthshaking explosion. Al eyes turn toward the rise that hides the airstrip. A huge fireball floats into view over there. Everyone starts running toward it. Shliemann yells at Belzig and the Armed Nazis. SHLIEMANN Stay with the Ark! EXT. THE RISE ABOVE AIRSTRIP - DAY Almost all the Arabs and Germans in the digs have congregated here and are staring at the burning remains of the Flying Wing. Belloq and Shliemann arrive just as the second fuel truck blows up. The concussion knocks many of the observers flat. Belloq, Shliemann and Gobler watch the scene in alarm. SHLIEMANN Sabotage! BELLOQ We must get the Ark away from this place immediately! SHLIEMANN (to Gobler) Have it put on the truck. We'll fly out of Cairo. Gobler snaps his heels, turns to go. SHLIEMANN And Gobler - (Gobler stops) I want plenty of protection. Gobler nods and runs off. Shliemann heads back toward camp. Belloq hesitates a long moment, studying the burning wreckage with an odd, suspicious look. Finally, he turns and leaves, passing a nearby stack of barrels. When he has passed, Sallah appears from among the barrels. He searches the crowd for his people and starts a broken field run along some tents to avoid a group of Germans and is running flat-out when someone sticks out a leg and sends him flipping. Sallah, dust all over his face, looks angrily toward the concealed culprit. At once, a flashing white grin splits his darkened face. Indy and Marion, splotched with soot and oil, are hiding in the flap of a tent. Sallah runs into their arms and the three embrace warmly. When they break - SALLAH Holy smoke, my friends! I am so pleased you are not dead. MARION Us too. SALLAH (suddenly remembering) The Ark! They're taking it on a truck to Cairo. INDY Where is it? Sallah gestures to follow and all three run off stealthily through the mostly deserted camp. EXT. AMONG THE TENTS - DAY Sallah, Indy and Marion run into a hiding spot behind some water barrels near the Command Tent. They peek out at this activity - In the big space near the Command Tent is parked an open German staff car; inside is a

night

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

within a fraction of an inch of the tiny hole in its sun. The edge of the sunlight moving across the miniature city is still a good two feet beyond the spot Belloq has settled on. And now that line of light is broken by the shadow of an ornate sun at the top of the staff. Indy's face reflects his concentration. And then his immense pleasure. He sees what he came for. Out of the miniature city, one small building is being lit by a tiny beam of sunlight in the center of the shadow of the metal sun. And by some trick of ancient artistry, this one building responds to the sunlight like none of the others. The golden light permeates it: it seems to glow. The building is in a direct line with Belloq's - all the Frenchman's other calculations were right - but it is a foot and a half beyond it. EXT. IN THE CAMP - DAY Sallah, sweating profusely, has finished serving the line of Breakfasting Germans and now heads back to replace the kettle and get away. HUNGRY GERMAN Water. Bring us water. INT. MAP ROOM Indy is on his knees at the miniature city, a special tape measure in his hand. Indy has the tape strung from Belloq's mistaken spot to his own correct spot. He gets his reading, leaps up and crosses to the erect staff. He pulls the headpiece off the staff and hides it in his robes. He quickly breaks the wooden staff in two and throws the pieces behind a pile of debris. Then he moves quickly to beneath the skylight. INDY (stage whisper) Sallah. (he waits, then louder) Sallah! More waiting. Nothing. Indy looks around for some alternative means of escape. The room doesn't offer any. He looks up at the skylight again. INDY (loudest) Sallah! A long pause. Then something comes down. A makeshift rope. Really just a bunch of clothing tied together - tunics, robes, pants. But what we see first and most prominently, the first section of Indy's escape rope, is a bright Nazi flag. Indy beams and climbs. EXT. ABOVE THE MAP ROOM - DAY Indy sticks his head out the skylight, sees it clear and flops his body out. Sallah, crouching behind the oil drum, immediately starts pulling in the makeshift rope. Sallah stuffs the rope in the oil drum and the two men begin waking toward some tents. HUNGRY GERMAN (O.S.) Hey, you! More water over here! Sallah glances at Indy, Then hurries back in that direction. The Hungry German focuses on Indy. HUNGRY GERMAN Why aren't you at the digs? Come here! Indy bows in wild subservience and hurries off in the opposite direction. HUNGRY GERMAN (yelling after him, irritated) No, dummkopf, I said come! EXT. BETWEEN TWO TENTS - DAY Indy hustles between the tents. Up ahead, two German Officers stop to talk, blocking his exit. He moves along the side of one of the tents until he finds an opening and slips inside. INT. THE TENT Indy finds himself in a tent set up for rather comfortable living. He has just started to cross it when he hears a loud, excited grunting. He turns toward the sound. In the corner, tied to a chair and gagged is Marion. Indy rushes to her, snatches the gag from her mouth and embraces her. They kiss, deep and long. INDY I though you were dead. MARION They were throwing me around like a rag doll. INDY They must have switched baskets. Thank god for that! Bless those bastards. Have they hurt you? MARION No. Not since I got here. They just asked about you - what you knew. The Frenchman's got the hot's for me. I've been playing that along. Oh, Indy, get me out of here. Indy pulls out a knife and then stops suddenly, thinking. MARION What's wrong? INDY (putting the knife away) I have to leave you here for a little while. I know where the Ark is. If I take you out of here they'll start combing the place for us. MARION (louder) Cut me loose! INDY Keep your voice down. MARION (screaming) I said get me out of - Indy pops the gag back in her mouth. Her eyes widen in fury and she grunts obscenities at him. INDY Look, you don't know how glad I am to see you. And I don't like doing this. But the whole thing will be shot if you don't just sit here quietly. They haven't hurt you in the last twenty-four hours, they aren't going to start now. I'll be back to get you in no time. He kisses her forehead, jumps up and hurries out of the tent. EXT. SAND DUNE OUTSIDE DIGS - DAY With the digs behind them, Indy and Sallah run up to the ridge of the dune and over the top. At the bottom of the far side, Omar's truck is parked. Omar and his men are waiting. EXT. DIFFERENT DUNE - DAY This new spot gives Indy a higher, better view of the whole scene. Indy is using a surveyor's instrument to take a reading - WHAT HE SEES Looking through the instrument, Indy gets a line from the map room through the site where the Nazis are digging in the dunes to a spot several dunes over. We focus on that virgin spot of well-hidden sand as - INDY There! EXT. INDY'S DIG - DAY Omar's truck is parked at the spot just viewed from afar. Dunes rise on either side. One of Omar's men has been posted as a lookout up on a ridge. Everybody else - Indy, Sallah, Omar, and his men - have begun digging for the Wells of the Souls. DISSOLVE TO: SAME SCENE - NIGHT They continue to dig furiously, all of them drenched in sweat. The hole has grown but this is slow, back-breaking work. INT. COMMAND TENT - TANIS DIGS - NIGHT Belloq, SHLIEMANN the ranking Nazi, and Shliemann's Aide, GOBLER, come into the tent, which is full of charts and maps, drawings of the Ark, radio equipment, liquor and food. The men have been out digging for the Well all day. They are tired, discouraged, testy. In all matters, Gobler shows his alliance with Shliemann against Belloq with small looks and body language. The Frenchman has disappointed them and he is feeling the isolation of a scapegoat. Belloq gets himself a drink as Shliemann towels off his face. BELLOQ I cautioned you about being premature with that communiqu to Berlin. Archeology is not an exact science. If does not adhere to time schedules. SHLIEMANN The Fuhrer is not a patient man. He demands constant reports and he expects progress. You led me to believe - BELLOQ Nothing. I have made no promises. I said only that it looked very favorable. Perhaps the Ark will still be found in an adjoining chamber. Based on the information in our possession, my calculations were correct. Perhaps some bit of evidence still eludes us. Perhaps GOBLER Perhaps the girl can help us. Belloq shoots him an angry look. SHLIEMANN My feeling exactly. She was in possession of the original piece for years. She may know much. (really evil) If properly motivated... BELLOQ I tell you, she knows nothing useful. SHLIEMANN I'm surprised to find you squeamish. That is not your reputation. But it needn't concern you. I have the perfect man for this kind of work. Shliemann signals Gobler, who steps outside the tent a moment, calls someone and then reappears. Belloq looks warily at the entrance. After a moment Belzig enters, reeking villainy. When his eyes find Shliemann, his superior, he snaps a crisp "Heil, Hitler!" at him, holding his palm rigid a long time, exposing a burned scar in the prefect shape of the sun medallion. EXT. INDY'S DIG - NIGHT In the eerie conjunction of moonlight and torchlight, Indy and the other men step back in awe of their discovery: there, flush with the bottom of their pit, is a heavy stone entry door to an underground chamber. Special prying tools are produced. With two men assigned to each of the two long tools, they work in unison to open the vault. They open it a foot and the other men rush in to flop the heavy door completely open. Down inside, only blackness. The men quickly prostrate themselves around the edge of the entry to look inside. Indy and Sallah each take a torch and hold them down the hole. WHAT THEY SEE The Well of the Souls is a spooky chamber thirty feet deep. The walls are covered with hieroglyphics and carvings. The roof is supported intermittently by stone pillars, the closest of which hits the roof very near the entry hole. The Well is quite large; as Indy and Sallah wave their torches, more and more of the room is revealed. Now the far end of the chamber comes into view. There is a stone altar down there and on this elaborated carved platform is a stone chest, big enough to enclose the Lost Ark and protect it from the ravages of time. This altar appears to be the only place on the floor of the Well that is not covered by a strange, dark carpet of some kind. INDY The Ark must be in that stone case. What's that gray stuff all over the floor - He breaks off realizing exactly what that carpet is. He blanches. Indiana Jones blanches. Indy drops his torch to the floor of the Well. This is answered by the most horrific HISSING imaginable. WHAT HE SEES That think dark carpet is moving. It's alive. It's thousands and thousands of deadly poisonous snakes - Egyptian asps. And the only thing that seems capable of avoiding this venomous groundcover is the altar. The snakes ebb and flow near it, but never encroach on it, as though repelled by some invisible force. Indy shakes his head and talks to himself. INDY Why snakes? Why did it have to be snakes? Anything else. After a moment of this, he stops. He gathers his energy and resolve and gets back to the task. SALLAH Asps. Very dangerous. Where Indy's torch had landed is a circle of snake-free floor. The snakes hate the flame; they stay away. INDY Lots of torches. And oil. I want a landing strip down there. INT. THE WELL OF THE SOULS Fifteen torches have been dropped to the floor of the chamber, combining to make a good-sized clear zone. Smoke begins to fill the room. Several canisters of oil have been lowered into this space. Now, a large wooden crate is lowered slowly by rope. Rope handles are attached to each end of the crate. Up at the hole, Indy gives Sallah a reassuring pat, takes a breath, and swings carefully onto a rope hanging from the hole. Despite his care, he swings a bit and his feet hit the stone pillar which is so near the entry. Surprisingly, the pillar actually moves a bit, showering a light rain of crumbled stone to the floor below. Indy lands on the floor of the Well. He looks at the altar over a sea of undulating death. He picks up an oil canister and splashes two parallel lines of oil and lights them. A path six feet wide begins to open to the altar. Behind Indy, Sallah comes quickly down the rope. We begin to INTERCUT all the action in the Well from here on with insert shots of the snakes outside the flames. Snakes and snakes. We see: snakes piled and entwined six inches deep; mother snakes laying snake eggs; snake eggs hatching little snakes; snakes cannibalizing other snakes. INT. MARION'S TENT Belloq has been talking to the still-bound Marion. He has removed her gag. He is impatient, angry, uncomfortable. Caught between two forces. BELLOQ Believe me, you made a mistake. If you would just give me something to placate them. Some bit of information. MARION I swear to you, I know nothing more. I have no loyalty to Jones. He's brought me only trouble. He wants to believe her. BELLOQ I cannot control them. Marion's frightened look shifts suddenly to the entrance of the tent. There are new arrivals there - Shliemann, Gobler and Belzig. Belzig carries a black leather case. He steps forward and smiles at Marion. BELZIG We meet again, Fraulein. EXT. INDY'S DIG - JUST BEFORE DAWN The sky is just beginning to lighten over the dunes to the east, making dangerously obvious the thin column of smoke rising from the entrance to the Well. Omar and his men are peering through the smoke down into the Well. INT. THE WELL OF THE SOULS Indy and Sallah are on the altar. Pushing together with all their strength, the heavy stone top of the protective chest begins to slide away. Indy and Sallah exchange slightly wary but very excited looks, then continue to push. As the Ark begins to be exposed, the air seems to almost vibrate, to become electrostatically charged. We hear what sounds like a low HUM. The sea of snakes around the altar draws back further from this presence. As the top of the stone chest is pushed completely off and slams down beside it, we see THE LOST ARK OF THE COVENANT. It is awesomely beautiful, breathtaking. 4 feet long, 2.5 feet wide and 2.5 feet high. It's height, however, is increased by the two sculptured gold angels mounted facing each other on the top. Though the body of the Ark is acacia wood, it has been overlaid with gold. An elaborate gold crown surrounds the top edge and gold carrying rings are attached to each corner. Sallah is mesmerized by the sight. His hand starts to reach out and touch one of the angels, but Indy grabs it. INDY Don't touch it! Never touch it! The wooden crate stands open next to the stone chest. Now Indy extracts the wooden poles from its rings and begins fitting them through the rings in the Ark. This takes some maneuvering by the two men, but soon they are able to lift the Ark clear of the stone chest and into the wooden crate. They extract the poles, fasten the top of the crate and stick the poles through the rings of the wooden crate. They start back toward the space under the hole. The fire strips have begun to dwindle, as have some of the torches. The snakes move slowly in toward the clear spaces. Indy and Sallah eye them nervously as they hurry along with their heavy load. Under the hole, they hurriedly attach ropes to the wooden crate and it is pulled up. Indy's concentration is on the tide of snakes. INDY Hurry up! Why did it have to be snakes? Sallah takes the next rope and climbs quickly out of the Well. Indy has picked up a torch and now throws it at a pool of snakes who are too close for his comfort. He turns and takes hold of the exit rope. He gives it a first tug and it falls down into the Well, landing partly beyond the ring of fire where is instantly disappears in a tangle of angry, hissing asps. Indy looks up at the hole. INDY What the - Smiling down at him from the perimeter of the entry are Belloq, Shliemann and Gobler. BELLOQ Why, Dr. Jones, whatever are you doing in such a nasty place? Belloq and the Germans laugh. INDY Why don't you fellows come down here? I'll show you. BELLOQ No thank you, my friend. (he glances around him) I think we are all very comfortable up here. EXT. INDY'S DIG - DAWN Sunlight is flooding this tableau: Sallah, Omar and his men are being held at bay by ten armed Nazis. The wooden crate sits safely nearby. Belzig and another Nazi have the gagged Marion held in their rough grasp. BELLOQ (down to Indy) After all these years, it is most considerate of you to aid me in this way. As Belloq speaks, Shliemann exchanges a look with Belzig. Belzig smiles and takes the gag from Marion's mouth. INT. WELLS OF THE SOULS Shliemann smiles down at Indy. SHLIEMANN I'm afraid we must be going now, Dr. Jones. Our prize is awaited in Berlin. But I do not wish to leave you down in that awful place... (he give a sign) ...all alone. Belzig and the Nazi move Marion to the hole and, to Belloq's surprise, push her in. Marion falls thirty feet screaming. Indy drops his torch, braces, and catches her! Her weight knocks him to the ground, almost into the snakes. She looks around at the snakes, clinging to him more desperately as he struggles to his feet trying to unload her. MARION Don't put me down! Up at the hole, there's plenty of dissension. BELLOQ The girl was mine! SHLIEMANN She is of no use to us. Only our mission for the Fuhrer matters. Shliemann glances meaningfully around at the other Nazis. SHLIEMANN I wonder sometimes, Monsieur, if you have that clearly in mind. Belloq feels how much he is the outsider, his own vulnerability. He backs down with the wisdom of survival. He turns to look down at Indy and Marion. His manner is gallant. BELLOQ Goodbye, mademoiselle. (a pause, then with respect) Indiana Jones... adieu! Belloq and the others step back from the hole and unseen Nazis slam the heavy stone door into place. Marion screams. Her scream is accompanied by - A huge WHOOSH! as air is sucked out and the chamber is sealed. Half of the torches still burning go out with the sound. The remaining torches continue to extinguish at punctuating intervals throughout the following action and the snakes immediately flood into the newly-darkened spaces. Indy puts Marion down and snatches up two burning torches. He hands one to Marion. INDY Don't panic. There's plenty of time for that later. Wave that at anything that slithers. Indy holds his torch out like a lantern and begins a slow O- turn, his eyes peering into the gloom, examining every inch of wall and ceiling. MARION What are you doing? INDY Just watch the floor. Reminded of the encroaching snakes, Marion waves her torch at the nearest edge of their circle. She looks faint. Indy continues his slow turn. MARION Whatever you're doing, do it faster. INDY (he spots something) There! His head whips around, looking at the pillars around the room. He sees what he wants. He grabs one of the oil canisters, looks back to the spot on the wall he's chosen and splashes oil on the floor in that direction, then lights it. A path opens toward that wall. INDY Come on! Marion is frozen in her spot. Indy drags her after him. He splashes oil the rest of the way to the wall. It lights and Indy pulls Marion over to the wall. He pours the remaining oil in a circle around them, creating a safe zone there. INDY Stay here! MARION (grabbing him) Where are you going? INDY I'll be back in a minute. We're going through this wall. Marion looks at the wall, which looks like all the rest to her. She thinks he's crazy. INDY Just keep your eyes open and get ready to run. No matter what happens to me. MARION (panicked) What do you mean? Too late. Indy runs back through the path of flames to the center of the room. Snakes strike as his flying heels. Indy reaches the base of the pillar which he touched briefly on his original descent. He uses his torch to clear away the scattered snakes climbing on it, then pulls out his whip. He draws it back, then wraps is solidly around the pillar 15 feet up. With the torch in his mouth, he begins climbing the pillar. It moves ominously under his weight. The last two torches still burning on the floor go out. Now the only light in the chamber is provided by the torches held by Indy and Marion and the dwindling oil flames. Snakes move in and surround the base of Indy's pillar. The path between Marion and the center of the room is overrun. The circle of flame around Marion is dying down. She looks beyond it with terror-widened eyes, then up through the increasing smoke at the distant Indy. Near the top of the pillar, Indy's hands strain along his taut whip, which he has moves higher. A snake slithers into view there, inches from Indy's straining face. Indy turns his head so the torch in his mouth can burn it. The snake falls from the pillar. Indy's torch is dwindling. Indy works his body around so that he is on the side of the pillar away from Marion. The pillar moves, showering dust. Indy looks at the chamber wall five feet away, takes a breath and swings his legs up against it. He is now braced between pillar and wall. MARION (O.S.) (screaming) Where are you?! Snakes are moving in force up the pillar toward Indy's dwindling torch. Indy grasps the pillar for dear life, grimaces with exertion and pushes against the wall with all he's got. The pillar begins to break loose of the ceiling, then stops. Indy's eyes are on the torch. It is just a spot of flame now. Snakes are sliding up toward his hands. Indy again pushes against the wall and the torch falls out of his mouth. The pillar goes! In the dim light, we see it fall like a tree directly at Marion. Indy rides it down. The top hits the wall three feet from a cringing Marion and smashes through to a black chamber beyond. Indy flies off into the darkness. Gone. Marion clutches her torch at the black hole. MARION Indy! Where are you?! Please Lord! There is a moment that seems an eternity, then Indy appears like an apparition out of the void. INDY Come on! He grabs her and helps her over the remains of the wall into - INT. THE CATACOMBS The winding string of connected chambers is revealed to them only a few feet at a time as their torch lights the way. MARION The snakes... are they here? INDY I guess not. I think I'd be dead. MARION Do you know where you're going? INDY Absolutely. MARION Thank god. Where? INDY Out. They round a corner and flush a covey of bats. Marion screams. INDY Don't do that. It scares me. Marion gives him a look. They round a corner and begin a walk through a maze of chambers that present for their inspection: moldering mummies and stacked sarcophagi; a room decorated with a thousand human skulls; a wall crawling with huge scarabaeid beetles. Marion is quite naturally a nervous wreck; she jumps when Indy grabs her suddenly and points. INDY Look! WHAT THEY SEE There, coming through the crack in the corner of the next chamber, is white blessed sunlight. EXT. THE TANIS DIGS - NEAR AIRSTRIP - DAY Indy and Marion peek out into the light from the shadows of an abandoned excavation. Before them is the improvised airstrip serving the digs: a crude runway, a tent supply depot, two fuel tank trucks. Down by the fuel trucks a German Mechanic is looking skyward. Now Indy and Marion look there too, drawn by the roaring sound of - A Flying Wing, which is circling over the digs in preparation to landing. Now a new figure approaches the German Mechanic. It is Gobler; he yells to the mechanic, indicating the plane. GOBLER Get is gassed immediately! It has an important cargo to take out! In the distance, the Flying Wing lands and rolls toward the men. Gobler spins and heads back toward the main camp, which is hidden from view by a rise. Indy and Marion watch him go. INDY When the Ark gets loaded, we're already going to be on that plane. The Flying Wing rolls up into the space near the fuel trucks. The German Mechanic puts blue blocks in front of the tires as the engines continue to roar. Indy and Marion run in a crouch to a hiding spot closer to the plane, near the supply tent. Suddenly, a Second German Mechanic appears behind them. He is as surprised as they are, but recovers quickly and swings a big monkey wrench at Indy. Indy grabs the swinging arm and the two men tumble out into the open, wrestling. Marion remains hidden, moving fast among the crates. The first German Mechanic, who is just pulling the fuel hose from the tank truck to the plane, sees the combatants and runs to help his countryman. He is almost upon them when Indy puts the Second German away with a devastating left - right - left combination. He turns to find the first German Mechanic flying at him. The roll toward the rear of the Flying Wing and its lethally spinning reversed propellers. In the cockpit of the Flying Wing, the Pilot has been fiddling with his gauges just prior to shutting off his engines. Now he notices the fight going on outside. The fistfight between Indy and the German Mechanic has taken on a new stomach-tightening dimension. The men are fighting and flailing in and out between the spinning props at the back of the plane's wings. Each man comes within inches of becoming instant mincemeat. The Pilot slides away the top of his cockpit and stands up. He pulls a Luger from his side and points it, waiting for a clear shot at Indy. The German Mechanic kicks Indy away from him and the Pilot aims his pistol. Suddenly, Marion appears behind the Pilot, standing on the opposite wing, and bashes him over the head with one of the blue blocks that was holding the tires. The Pilot drops down into the cockpit, his body falling on the throttle. The engines roar louder, revving up. The plane begins to roll, rotating around its one still- blocked set of tires. Marion grabs onto the cockpit to keep from slipping into the props. She bends into the cockpit, trying to pull the Pilot's body off the throttle. No luck. She grimaces and climbs inside. Her shoulder bumps the top of the cockpit; it slides tightly shut above her. Under the moving wing, Indy delivers a knockout rightcross to the German Mechanic which sends him staggering back toward a roaring propeller. Indy's grimace registers the man's demise and a fine mist of blood wafts toward him. Indy spins toward the sound of crumpling metal and sees - The other prop of the Flying Wing slice into a tank truck. The airplane fuel inside floods out onto the pavement, surrounding the plane. Indy backpedals away from the plane, his eyes searching the scene for Marion. Suddenly, he is shocked to see her in the cockpit. He runs toward her, skidding through the gasoline. INDY Get out! Get out! Marion is struggling with the top of the cockpit. She can't budge it. She's trapped. EXT. THE COMMAND TENT - DAY Three Armed Nazis stand guard around the wooden crate containing the Ark. It is sitting near the flopped-open entrance to the Command Tent and there is furious activity going on here. Belloq, Shliemann, Gobler, Belzig and assorted Aides are packing up all the papers and personal items in preparation for a hasty departure. A large crowd of Arab Diggers is milling about among the tents. They all want to get a look at the Ark. Sallah is among them. All at once, there is a earthshaking explosion. Al eyes turn toward the rise that hides the airstrip. A huge fireball floats into view over there. Everyone starts running toward it. Shliemann yells at Belzig and the Armed Nazis. SHLIEMANN Stay with the Ark! EXT. THE RISE ABOVE AIRSTRIP - DAY Almost all the Arabs and Germans in the digs have congregated here and are staring at the burning remains of the Flying Wing. Belloq and Shliemann arrive just as the second fuel truck blows up. The concussion knocks many of the observers flat. Belloq, Shliemann and Gobler watch the scene in alarm. SHLIEMANN Sabotage! BELLOQ We must get the Ark away from this place immediately! SHLIEMANN (to Gobler) Have it put on the truck. We'll fly out of Cairo. Gobler snaps his heels, turns to go. SHLIEMANN And Gobler - (Gobler stops) I want plenty of protection. Gobler nods and runs off. Shliemann heads back toward camp. Belloq hesitates a long moment, studying the burning wreckage with an odd, suspicious look. Finally, he turns and leaves, passing a nearby stack of barrels. When he has passed, Sallah appears from among the barrels. He searches the crowd for his people and starts a broken field run along some tents to avoid a group of Germans and is running flat-out when someone sticks out a leg and sends him flipping. Sallah, dust all over his face, looks angrily toward the concealed culprit. At once, a flashing white grin splits his darkened face. Indy and Marion, splotched with soot and oil, are hiding in the flap of a tent. Sallah runs into their arms and the three embrace warmly. When they break - SALLAH Holy smoke, my friends! I am so pleased you are not dead. MARION Us too. SALLAH (suddenly remembering) The Ark! They're taking it on a truck to Cairo. INDY Where is it? Sallah gestures to follow and all three run off stealthily through the mostly deserted camp. EXT. AMONG THE TENTS - DAY Sallah, Indy and Marion run into a hiding spot behind some water barrels near the Command Tent. They peek out at this activity - In the big space near the Command Tent is parked an open German staff car; inside is a

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within a fraction of an inch of the tiny hole in its sun. The edge of the sunlight moving across the miniature city is still a good two feet beyond the spot Belloq has settled on. And now that line of light is broken by the shadow of an ornate sun at the top of the staff. Indy's face reflects his concentration. And then his immense pleasure. He sees what he came for. Out of the miniature city, one small building is being lit by a tiny beam of sunlight in the center of the shadow of the metal sun. And by some trick of ancient artistry, this one building responds to the sunlight like none of the others. The golden light permeates it: it seems to glow. The building is in a direct line with Belloq's - all the Frenchman's other calculations were right - but it is a foot and a half beyond it. EXT. IN THE CAMP - DAY Sallah, sweating profusely, has finished serving the line of Breakfasting Germans and now heads back to replace the kettle and get away. HUNGRY GERMAN Water. Bring us water. INT. MAP ROOM Indy is on his knees at the miniature city, a special tape measure in his hand. Indy has the tape strung from Belloq's mistaken spot to his own correct spot. He gets his reading, leaps up and crosses to the erect staff. He pulls the headpiece off the staff and hides it in his robes. He quickly breaks the wooden staff in two and throws the pieces behind a pile of debris. Then he moves quickly to beneath the skylight. INDY (stage whisper) Sallah. (he waits, then louder) Sallah! More waiting. Nothing. Indy looks around for some alternative means of escape. The room doesn't offer any. He looks up at the skylight again. INDY (loudest) Sallah! A long pause. Then something comes down. A makeshift rope. Really just a bunch of clothing tied together - tunics, robes, pants. But what we see first and most prominently, the first section of Indy's escape rope, is a bright Nazi flag. Indy beams and climbs. EXT. ABOVE THE MAP ROOM - DAY Indy sticks his head out the skylight, sees it clear and flops his body out. Sallah, crouching behind the oil drum, immediately starts pulling in the makeshift rope. Sallah stuffs the rope in the oil drum and the two men begin waking toward some tents. HUNGRY GERMAN (O.S.) Hey, you! More water over here! Sallah glances at Indy, Then hurries back in that direction. The Hungry German focuses on Indy. HUNGRY GERMAN Why aren't you at the digs? Come here! Indy bows in wild subservience and hurries off in the opposite direction. HUNGRY GERMAN (yelling after him, irritated) No, dummkopf, I said come! EXT. BETWEEN TWO TENTS - DAY Indy hustles between the tents. Up ahead, two German Officers stop to talk, blocking his exit. He moves along the side of one of the tents until he finds an opening and slips inside. INT. THE TENT Indy finds himself in a tent set up for rather comfortable living. He has just started to cross it when he hears a loud, excited grunting. He turns toward the sound. In the corner, tied to a chair and gagged is Marion. Indy rushes to her, snatches the gag from her mouth and embraces her. They kiss, deep and long. INDY I though you were dead. MARION They were throwing me around like a rag doll. INDY They must have switched baskets. Thank god for that! Bless those bastards. Have they hurt you? MARION No. Not since I got here. They just asked about you - what you knew. The Frenchman's got the hot's for me. I've been playing that along. Oh, Indy, get me out of here. Indy pulls out a knife and then stops suddenly, thinking. MARION What's wrong? INDY (putting the knife away) I have to leave you here for a little while. I know where the Ark is. If I take you out of here they'll start combing the place for us. MARION (louder) Cut me loose! INDY Keep your voice down. MARION (screaming) I said get me out of - Indy pops the gag back in her mouth. Her eyes widen in fury and she grunts obscenities at him. INDY Look, you don't know how glad I am to see you. And I don't like doing this. But the whole thing will be shot if you don't just sit here quietly. They haven't hurt you in the last twenty-four hours, they aren't going to start now. I'll be back to get you in no time. He kisses her forehead, jumps up and hurries out of the tent. EXT. SAND DUNE OUTSIDE DIGS - DAY With the digs behind them, Indy and Sallah run up to the ridge of the dune and over the top. At the bottom of the far side, Omar's truck is parked. Omar and his men are waiting. EXT. DIFFERENT DUNE - DAY This new spot gives Indy a higher, better view of the whole scene. Indy is using a surveyor's instrument to take a reading - WHAT HE SEES Looking through the instrument, Indy gets a line from the map room through the site where the Nazis are digging in the dunes to a spot several dunes over. We focus on that virgin spot of well-hidden sand as - INDY There! EXT. INDY'S DIG - DAY Omar's truck is parked at the spot just viewed from afar. Dunes rise on either side. One of Omar's men has been posted as a lookout up on a ridge. Everybody else - Indy, Sallah, Omar, and his men - have begun digging for the Wells of the Souls. DISSOLVE TO: SAME SCENE - NIGHT They continue to dig furiously, all of them drenched in sweat. The hole has grown but this is slow, back-breaking work. INT. COMMAND TENT - TANIS DIGS - NIGHT Belloq, SHLIEMANN the ranking Nazi, and Shliemann's Aide, GOBLER, come into the tent, which is full of charts and maps, drawings of the Ark, radio equipment, liquor and food. The men have been out digging for the Well all day. They are tired, discouraged, testy. In all matters, Gobler shows his alliance with Shliemann against Belloq with small looks and body language. The Frenchman has disappointed them and he is feeling the isolation of a scapegoat. Belloq gets himself a drink as Shliemann towels off his face. BELLOQ I cautioned you about being premature with that communiqu to Berlin. Archeology is not an exact science. If does not adhere to time schedules. SHLIEMANN The Fuhrer is not a patient man. He demands constant reports and he expects progress. You led me to believe - BELLOQ Nothing. I have made no promises. I said only that it looked very favorable. Perhaps the Ark will still be found in an adjoining chamber. Based on the information in our possession, my calculations were correct. Perhaps some bit of evidence still eludes us. Perhaps GOBLER Perhaps the girl can help us. Belloq shoots him an angry look. SHLIEMANN My feeling exactly. She was in possession of the original piece for years. She may know much. (really evil) If properly motivated... BELLOQ I tell you, she knows nothing useful. SHLIEMANN I'm surprised to find you squeamish. That is not your reputation. But it needn't concern you. I have the perfect man for this kind of work. Shliemann signals Gobler, who steps outside the tent a moment, calls someone and then reappears. Belloq looks warily at the entrance. After a moment Belzig enters, reeking villainy. When his eyes find Shliemann, his superior, he snaps a crisp "Heil, Hitler!" at him, holding his palm rigid a long time, exposing a burned scar in the prefect shape of the sun medallion. EXT. INDY'S DIG - NIGHT In the eerie conjunction of moonlight and torchlight, Indy and the other men step back in awe of their discovery: there, flush with the bottom of their pit, is a heavy stone entry door to an underground chamber. Special prying tools are produced. With two men assigned to each of the two long tools, they work in unison to open the vault. They open it a foot and the other men rush in to flop the heavy door completely open. Down inside, only blackness. The men quickly prostrate themselves around the edge of the entry to look inside. Indy and Sallah each take a torch and hold them down the hole. WHAT THEY SEE The Well of the Souls is a spooky chamber thirty feet deep. The walls are covered with hieroglyphics and carvings. The roof is supported intermittently by stone pillars, the closest of which hits the roof very near the entry hole. The Well is quite large; as Indy and Sallah wave their torches, more and more of the room is revealed. Now the far end of the chamber comes into view. There is a stone altar down there and on this elaborated carved platform is a stone chest, big enough to enclose the Lost Ark and protect it from the ravages of time. This altar appears to be the only place on the floor of the Well that is not covered by a strange, dark carpet of some kind. INDY The Ark must be in that stone case. What's that gray stuff all over the floor - He breaks off realizing exactly what that carpet is. He blanches. Indiana Jones blanches. Indy drops his torch to the floor of the Well. This is answered by the most horrific HISSING imaginable. WHAT HE SEES That think dark carpet is moving. It's alive. It's thousands and thousands of deadly poisonous snakes - Egyptian asps. And the only thing that seems capable of avoiding this venomous groundcover is the altar. The snakes ebb and flow near it, but never encroach on it, as though repelled by some invisible force. Indy shakes his head and talks to himself. INDY Why snakes? Why did it have to be snakes? Anything else. After a moment of this, he stops. He gathers his energy and resolve and gets back to the task. SALLAH Asps. Very dangerous. Where Indy's torch had landed is a circle of snake-free floor. The snakes hate the flame; they stay away. INDY Lots of torches. And oil. I want a landing strip down there. INT. THE WELL OF THE SOULS Fifteen torches have been dropped to the floor of the chamber, combining to make a good-sized clear zone. Smoke begins to fill the room. Several canisters of oil have been lowered into this space. Now, a large wooden crate is lowered slowly by rope. Rope handles are attached to each end of the crate. Up at the hole, Indy gives Sallah a reassuring pat, takes a breath, and swings carefully onto a rope hanging from the hole. Despite his care, he swings a bit and his feet hit the stone pillar which is so near the entry. Surprisingly, the pillar actually moves a bit, showering a light rain of crumbled stone to the floor below. Indy lands on the floor of the Well. He looks at the altar over a sea of undulating death. He picks up an oil canister and splashes two parallel lines of oil and lights them. A path six feet wide begins to open to the altar. Behind Indy, Sallah comes quickly down the rope. We begin to INTERCUT all the action in the Well from here on with insert shots of the snakes outside the flames. Snakes and snakes. We see: snakes piled and entwined six inches deep; mother snakes laying snake eggs; snake eggs hatching little snakes; snakes cannibalizing other snakes. INT. MARION'S TENT Belloq has been talking to the still-bound Marion. He has removed her gag. He is impatient, angry, uncomfortable. Caught between two forces. BELLOQ Believe me, you made a mistake. If you would just give me something to placate them. Some bit of information. MARION I swear to you, I know nothing more. I have no loyalty to Jones. He's brought me only trouble. He wants to believe her. BELLOQ I cannot control them. Marion's frightened look shifts suddenly to the entrance of the tent. There are new arrivals there - Shliemann, Gobler and Belzig. Belzig carries a black leather case. He steps forward and smiles at Marion. BELZIG We meet again, Fraulein. EXT. INDY'S DIG - JUST BEFORE DAWN The sky is just beginning to lighten over the dunes to the east, making dangerously obvious the thin column of smoke rising from the entrance to the Well. Omar and his men are peering through the smoke down into the Well. INT. THE WELL OF THE SOULS Indy and Sallah are on the altar. Pushing together with all their strength, the heavy stone top of the protective chest begins to slide away. Indy and Sallah exchange slightly wary but very excited looks, then continue to push. As the Ark begins to be exposed, the air seems to almost vibrate, to become electrostatically charged. We hear what sounds like a low HUM. The sea of snakes around the altar draws back further from this presence. As the top of the stone chest is pushed completely off and slams down beside it, we see THE LOST ARK OF THE COVENANT. It is awesomely beautiful, breathtaking. 4 feet long, 2.5 feet wide and 2.5 feet high. It's height, however, is increased by the two sculptured gold angels mounted facing each other on the top. Though the body of the Ark is acacia wood, it has been overlaid with gold. An elaborate gold crown surrounds the top edge and gold carrying rings are attached to each corner. Sallah is mesmerized by the sight. His hand starts to reach out and touch one of the angels, but Indy grabs it. INDY Don't touch it! Never touch it! The wooden crate stands open next to the stone chest. Now Indy extracts the wooden poles from its rings and begins fitting them through the rings in the Ark. This takes some maneuvering by the two men, but soon they are able to lift the Ark clear of the stone chest and into the wooden crate. They extract the poles, fasten the top of the crate and stick the poles through the rings of the wooden crate. They start back toward the space under the hole. The fire strips have begun to dwindle, as have some of the torches. The snakes move slowly in toward the clear spaces. Indy and Sallah eye them nervously as they hurry along with their heavy load. Under the hole, they hurriedly attach ropes to the wooden crate and it is pulled up. Indy's concentration is on the tide of snakes. INDY Hurry up! Why did it have to be snakes? Sallah takes the next rope and climbs quickly out of the Well. Indy has picked up a torch and now throws it at a pool of snakes who are too close for his comfort. He turns and takes hold of the exit rope. He gives it a first tug and it falls down into the Well, landing partly beyond the ring of fire where is instantly disappears in a tangle of angry, hissing asps. Indy looks up at the hole. INDY What the - Smiling down at him from the perimeter of the entry are Belloq, Shliemann and Gobler. BELLOQ Why, Dr. Jones, whatever are you doing in such a nasty place? Belloq and the Germans laugh. INDY Why don't you fellows come down here? I'll show you. BELLOQ No thank you, my friend. (he glances around him) I think we are all very comfortable up here. EXT. INDY'S DIG - DAWN Sunlight is flooding this tableau: Sallah, Omar and his men are being held at bay by ten armed Nazis. The wooden crate sits safely nearby. Belzig and another Nazi have the gagged Marion held in their rough grasp. BELLOQ (down to Indy) After all these years, it is most considerate of you to aid me in this way. As Belloq speaks, Shliemann exchanges a look with Belzig. Belzig smiles and takes the gag from Marion's mouth. INT. WELLS OF THE SOULS Shliemann smiles down at Indy. SHLIEMANN I'm afraid we must be going now, Dr. Jones. Our prize is awaited in Berlin. But I do not wish to leave you down in that awful place... (he give a sign) ...all alone. Belzig and the Nazi move Marion to the hole and, to Belloq's surprise, push her in. Marion falls thirty feet screaming. Indy drops his torch, braces, and catches her! Her weight knocks him to the ground, almost into the snakes. She looks around at the snakes, clinging to him more desperately as he struggles to his feet trying to unload her. MARION Don't put me down! Up at the hole, there's plenty of dissension. BELLOQ The girl was mine! SHLIEMANN She is of no use to us. Only our mission for the Fuhrer matters. Shliemann glances meaningfully around at the other Nazis. SHLIEMANN I wonder sometimes, Monsieur, if you have that clearly in mind. Belloq feels how much he is the outsider, his own vulnerability. He backs down with the wisdom of survival. He turns to look down at Indy and Marion. His manner is gallant. BELLOQ Goodbye, mademoiselle. (a pause, then with respect) Indiana Jones... adieu! Belloq and the others step back from the hole and unseen Nazis slam the heavy stone door into place. Marion screams. Her scream is accompanied by - A huge WHOOSH! as air is sucked out and the chamber is sealed. Half of the torches still burning go out with the sound. The remaining torches continue to extinguish at punctuating intervals throughout the following action and the snakes immediately flood into the newly-darkened spaces. Indy puts Marion down and snatches up two burning torches. He hands one to Marion. INDY Don't panic. There's plenty of time for that later. Wave that at anything that slithers. Indy holds his torch out like a lantern and begins a slow O- turn, his eyes peering into the gloom, examining every inch of wall and ceiling. MARION What are you doing? INDY Just watch the floor. Reminded of the encroaching snakes, Marion waves her torch at the nearest edge of their circle. She looks faint. Indy continues his slow turn. MARION Whatever you're doing, do it faster. INDY (he spots something) There! His head whips around, looking at the pillars around the room. He sees what he wants. He grabs one of the oil canisters, looks back to the spot on the wall he's chosen and splashes oil on the floor in that direction, then lights it. A path opens toward that wall. INDY Come on! Marion is frozen in her spot. Indy drags her after him. He splashes oil the rest of the way to the wall. It lights and Indy pulls Marion over to the wall. He pours the remaining oil in a circle around them, creating a safe zone there. INDY Stay here! MARION (grabbing him) Where are you going? INDY I'll be back in a minute. We're going through this wall. Marion looks at the wall, which looks like all the rest to her. She thinks he's crazy. INDY Just keep your eyes open and get ready to run. No matter what happens to me. MARION (panicked) What do you mean? Too late. Indy runs back through the path of flames to the center of the room. Snakes strike as his flying heels. Indy reaches the base of the pillar which he touched briefly on his original descent. He uses his torch to clear away the scattered snakes climbing on it, then pulls out his whip. He draws it back, then wraps is solidly around the pillar 15 feet up. With the torch in his mouth, he begins climbing the pillar. It moves ominously under his weight. The last two torches still burning on the floor go out. Now the only light in the chamber is provided by the torches held by Indy and Marion and the dwindling oil flames. Snakes move in and surround the base of Indy's pillar. The path between Marion and the center of the room is overrun. The circle of flame around Marion is dying down. She looks beyond it with terror-widened eyes, then up through the increasing smoke at the distant Indy. Near the top of the pillar, Indy's hands strain along his taut whip, which he has moves higher. A snake slithers into view there, inches from Indy's straining face. Indy turns his head so the torch in his mouth can burn it. The snake falls from the pillar. Indy's torch is dwindling. Indy works his body around so that he is on the side of the pillar away from Marion. The pillar moves, showering dust. Indy looks at the chamber wall five feet away, takes a breath and swings his legs up against it. He is now braced between pillar and wall. MARION (O.S.) (screaming) Where are you?! Snakes are moving in force up the pillar toward Indy's dwindling torch. Indy grasps the pillar for dear life, grimaces with exertion and pushes against the wall with all he's got. The pillar begins to break loose of the ceiling, then stops. Indy's eyes are on the torch. It is just a spot of flame now. Snakes are sliding up toward his hands. Indy again pushes against the wall and the torch falls out of his mouth. The pillar goes! In the dim light, we see it fall like a tree directly at Marion. Indy rides it down. The top hits the wall three feet from a cringing Marion and smashes through to a black chamber beyond. Indy flies off into the darkness. Gone. Marion clutches her torch at the black hole. MARION Indy! Where are you?! Please Lord! There is a moment that seems an eternity, then Indy appears like an apparition out of the void. INDY Come on! He grabs her and helps her over the remains of the wall into - INT. THE CATACOMBS The winding string of connected chambers is revealed to them only a few feet at a time as their torch lights the way. MARION The snakes... are they here? INDY I guess not. I think I'd be dead. MARION Do you know where you're going? INDY Absolutely. MARION Thank god. Where? INDY Out. They round a corner and flush a covey of bats. Marion screams. INDY Don't do that. It scares me. Marion gives him a look. They round a corner and begin a walk through a maze of chambers that present for their inspection: moldering mummies and stacked sarcophagi; a room decorated with a thousand human skulls; a wall crawling with huge scarabaeid beetles. Marion is quite naturally a nervous wreck; she jumps when Indy grabs her suddenly and points. INDY Look! WHAT THEY SEE There, coming through the crack in the corner of the next chamber, is white blessed sunlight. EXT. THE TANIS DIGS - NEAR AIRSTRIP - DAY Indy and Marion peek out into the light from the shadows of an abandoned excavation. Before them is the improvised airstrip serving the digs: a crude runway, a tent supply depot, two fuel tank trucks. Down by the fuel trucks a German Mechanic is looking skyward. Now Indy and Marion look there too, drawn by the roaring sound of - A Flying Wing, which is circling over the digs in preparation to landing. Now a new figure approaches the German Mechanic. It is Gobler; he yells to the mechanic, indicating the plane. GOBLER Get is gassed immediately! It has an important cargo to take out! In the distance, the Flying Wing lands and rolls toward the men. Gobler spins and heads back toward the main camp, which is hidden from view by a rise. Indy and Marion watch him go. INDY When the Ark gets loaded, we're already going to be on that plane. The Flying Wing rolls up into the space near the fuel trucks. The German Mechanic puts blue blocks in front of the tires as the engines continue to roar. Indy and Marion run in a crouch to a hiding spot closer to the plane, near the supply tent. Suddenly, a Second German Mechanic appears behind them. He is as surprised as they are, but recovers quickly and swings a big monkey wrench at Indy. Indy grabs the swinging arm and the two men tumble out into the open, wrestling. Marion remains hidden, moving fast among the crates. The first German Mechanic, who is just pulling the fuel hose from the tank truck to the plane, sees the combatants and runs to help his countryman. He is almost upon them when Indy puts the Second German away with a devastating left - right - left combination. He turns to find the first German Mechanic flying at him. The roll toward the rear of the Flying Wing and its lethally spinning reversed propellers. In the cockpit of the Flying Wing, the Pilot has been fiddling with his gauges just prior to shutting off his engines. Now he notices the fight going on outside. The fistfight between Indy and the German Mechanic has taken on a new stomach-tightening dimension. The men are fighting and flailing in and out between the spinning props at the back of the plane's wings. Each man comes within inches of becoming instant mincemeat. The Pilot slides away the top of his cockpit and stands up. He pulls a Luger from his side and points it, waiting for a clear shot at Indy. The German Mechanic kicks Indy away from him and the Pilot aims his pistol. Suddenly, Marion appears behind the Pilot, standing on the opposite wing, and bashes him over the head with one of the blue blocks that was holding the tires. The Pilot drops down into the cockpit, his body falling on the throttle. The engines roar louder, revving up. The plane begins to roll, rotating around its one still- blocked set of tires. Marion grabs onto the cockpit to keep from slipping into the props. She bends into the cockpit, trying to pull the Pilot's body off the throttle. No luck. She grimaces and climbs inside. Her shoulder bumps the top of the cockpit; it slides tightly shut above her. Under the moving wing, Indy delivers a knockout rightcross to the German Mechanic which sends him staggering back toward a roaring propeller. Indy's grimace registers the man's demise and a fine mist of blood wafts toward him. Indy spins toward the sound of crumpling metal and sees - The other prop of the Flying Wing slice into a tank truck. The airplane fuel inside floods out onto the pavement, surrounding the plane. Indy backpedals away from the plane, his eyes searching the scene for Marion. Suddenly, he is shocked to see her in the cockpit. He runs toward her, skidding through the gasoline. INDY Get out! Get out! Marion is struggling with the top of the cockpit. She can't budge it. She's trapped. EXT. THE COMMAND TENT - DAY Three Armed Nazis stand guard around the wooden crate containing the Ark. It is sitting near the flopped-open entrance to the Command Tent and there is furious activity going on here. Belloq, Shliemann, Gobler, Belzig and assorted Aides are packing up all the papers and personal items in preparation for a hasty departure. A large crowd of Arab Diggers is milling about among the tents. They all want to get a look at the Ark. Sallah is among them. All at once, there is a earthshaking explosion. Al eyes turn toward the rise that hides the airstrip. A huge fireball floats into view over there. Everyone starts running toward it. Shliemann yells at Belzig and the Armed Nazis. SHLIEMANN Stay with the Ark! EXT. THE RISE ABOVE AIRSTRIP - DAY Almost all the Arabs and Germans in the digs have congregated here and are staring at the burning remains of the Flying Wing. Belloq and Shliemann arrive just as the second fuel truck blows up. The concussion knocks many of the observers flat. Belloq, Shliemann and Gobler watch the scene in alarm. SHLIEMANN Sabotage! BELLOQ We must get the Ark away from this place immediately! SHLIEMANN (to Gobler) Have it put on the truck. We'll fly out of Cairo. Gobler snaps his heels, turns to go. SHLIEMANN And Gobler - (Gobler stops) I want plenty of protection. Gobler nods and runs off. Shliemann heads back toward camp. Belloq hesitates a long moment, studying the burning wreckage with an odd, suspicious look. Finally, he turns and leaves, passing a nearby stack of barrels. When he has passed, Sallah appears from among the barrels. He searches the crowd for his people and starts a broken field run along some tents to avoid a group of Germans and is running flat-out when someone sticks out a leg and sends him flipping. Sallah, dust all over his face, looks angrily toward the concealed culprit. At once, a flashing white grin splits his darkened face. Indy and Marion, splotched with soot and oil, are hiding in the flap of a tent. Sallah runs into their arms and the three embrace warmly. When they break - SALLAH Holy smoke, my friends! I am so pleased you are not dead. MARION Us too. SALLAH (suddenly remembering) The Ark! They're taking it on a truck to Cairo. INDY Where is it? Sallah gestures to follow and all three run off stealthily through the mostly deserted camp. EXT. AMONG THE TENTS - DAY Sallah, Indy and Marion run into a hiding spot behind some water barrels near the Command Tent. They peek out at this activity - In the big space near the Command Tent is parked an open German staff car; inside is a

staff

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

within a fraction of an inch of the tiny hole in its sun. The edge of the sunlight moving across the miniature city is still a good two feet beyond the spot Belloq has settled on. And now that line of light is broken by the shadow of an ornate sun at the top of the staff. Indy's face reflects his concentration. And then his immense pleasure. He sees what he came for. Out of the miniature city, one small building is being lit by a tiny beam of sunlight in the center of the shadow of the metal sun. And by some trick of ancient artistry, this one building responds to the sunlight like none of the others. The golden light permeates it: it seems to glow. The building is in a direct line with Belloq's - all the Frenchman's other calculations were right - but it is a foot and a half beyond it. EXT. IN THE CAMP - DAY Sallah, sweating profusely, has finished serving the line of Breakfasting Germans and now heads back to replace the kettle and get away. HUNGRY GERMAN Water. Bring us water. INT. MAP ROOM Indy is on his knees at the miniature city, a special tape measure in his hand. Indy has the tape strung from Belloq's mistaken spot to his own correct spot. He gets his reading, leaps up and crosses to the erect staff. He pulls the headpiece off the staff and hides it in his robes. He quickly breaks the wooden staff in two and throws the pieces behind a pile of debris. Then he moves quickly to beneath the skylight. INDY (stage whisper) Sallah. (he waits, then louder) Sallah! More waiting. Nothing. Indy looks around for some alternative means of escape. The room doesn't offer any. He looks up at the skylight again. INDY (loudest) Sallah! A long pause. Then something comes down. A makeshift rope. Really just a bunch of clothing tied together - tunics, robes, pants. But what we see first and most prominently, the first section of Indy's escape rope, is a bright Nazi flag. Indy beams and climbs. EXT. ABOVE THE MAP ROOM - DAY Indy sticks his head out the skylight, sees it clear and flops his body out. Sallah, crouching behind the oil drum, immediately starts pulling in the makeshift rope. Sallah stuffs the rope in the oil drum and the two men begin waking toward some tents. HUNGRY GERMAN (O.S.) Hey, you! More water over here! Sallah glances at Indy, Then hurries back in that direction. The Hungry German focuses on Indy. HUNGRY GERMAN Why aren't you at the digs? Come here! Indy bows in wild subservience and hurries off in the opposite direction. HUNGRY GERMAN (yelling after him, irritated) No, dummkopf, I said come! EXT. BETWEEN TWO TENTS - DAY Indy hustles between the tents. Up ahead, two German Officers stop to talk, blocking his exit. He moves along the side of one of the tents until he finds an opening and slips inside. INT. THE TENT Indy finds himself in a tent set up for rather comfortable living. He has just started to cross it when he hears a loud, excited grunting. He turns toward the sound. In the corner, tied to a chair and gagged is Marion. Indy rushes to her, snatches the gag from her mouth and embraces her. They kiss, deep and long. INDY I though you were dead. MARION They were throwing me around like a rag doll. INDY They must have switched baskets. Thank god for that! Bless those bastards. Have they hurt you? MARION No. Not since I got here. They just asked about you - what you knew. The Frenchman's got the hot's for me. I've been playing that along. Oh, Indy, get me out of here. Indy pulls out a knife and then stops suddenly, thinking. MARION What's wrong? INDY (putting the knife away) I have to leave you here for a little while. I know where the Ark is. If I take you out of here they'll start combing the place for us. MARION (louder) Cut me loose! INDY Keep your voice down. MARION (screaming) I said get me out of - Indy pops the gag back in her mouth. Her eyes widen in fury and she grunts obscenities at him. INDY Look, you don't know how glad I am to see you. And I don't like doing this. But the whole thing will be shot if you don't just sit here quietly. They haven't hurt you in the last twenty-four hours, they aren't going to start now. I'll be back to get you in no time. He kisses her forehead, jumps up and hurries out of the tent. EXT. SAND DUNE OUTSIDE DIGS - DAY With the digs behind them, Indy and Sallah run up to the ridge of the dune and over the top. At the bottom of the far side, Omar's truck is parked. Omar and his men are waiting. EXT. DIFFERENT DUNE - DAY This new spot gives Indy a higher, better view of the whole scene. Indy is using a surveyor's instrument to take a reading - WHAT HE SEES Looking through the instrument, Indy gets a line from the map room through the site where the Nazis are digging in the dunes to a spot several dunes over. We focus on that virgin spot of well-hidden sand as - INDY There! EXT. INDY'S DIG - DAY Omar's truck is parked at the spot just viewed from afar. Dunes rise on either side. One of Omar's men has been posted as a lookout up on a ridge. Everybody else - Indy, Sallah, Omar, and his men - have begun digging for the Wells of the Souls. DISSOLVE TO: SAME SCENE - NIGHT They continue to dig furiously, all of them drenched in sweat. The hole has grown but this is slow, back-breaking work. INT. COMMAND TENT - TANIS DIGS - NIGHT Belloq, SHLIEMANN the ranking Nazi, and Shliemann's Aide, GOBLER, come into the tent, which is full of charts and maps, drawings of the Ark, radio equipment, liquor and food. The men have been out digging for the Well all day. They are tired, discouraged, testy. In all matters, Gobler shows his alliance with Shliemann against Belloq with small looks and body language. The Frenchman has disappointed them and he is feeling the isolation of a scapegoat. Belloq gets himself a drink as Shliemann towels off his face. BELLOQ I cautioned you about being premature with that communiqu to Berlin. Archeology is not an exact science. If does not adhere to time schedules. SHLIEMANN The Fuhrer is not a patient man. He demands constant reports and he expects progress. You led me to believe - BELLOQ Nothing. I have made no promises. I said only that it looked very favorable. Perhaps the Ark will still be found in an adjoining chamber. Based on the information in our possession, my calculations were correct. Perhaps some bit of evidence still eludes us. Perhaps GOBLER Perhaps the girl can help us. Belloq shoots him an angry look. SHLIEMANN My feeling exactly. She was in possession of the original piece for years. She may know much. (really evil) If properly motivated... BELLOQ I tell you, she knows nothing useful. SHLIEMANN I'm surprised to find you squeamish. That is not your reputation. But it needn't concern you. I have the perfect man for this kind of work. Shliemann signals Gobler, who steps outside the tent a moment, calls someone and then reappears. Belloq looks warily at the entrance. After a moment Belzig enters, reeking villainy. When his eyes find Shliemann, his superior, he snaps a crisp "Heil, Hitler!" at him, holding his palm rigid a long time, exposing a burned scar in the prefect shape of the sun medallion. EXT. INDY'S DIG - NIGHT In the eerie conjunction of moonlight and torchlight, Indy and the other men step back in awe of their discovery: there, flush with the bottom of their pit, is a heavy stone entry door to an underground chamber. Special prying tools are produced. With two men assigned to each of the two long tools, they work in unison to open the vault. They open it a foot and the other men rush in to flop the heavy door completely open. Down inside, only blackness. The men quickly prostrate themselves around the edge of the entry to look inside. Indy and Sallah each take a torch and hold them down the hole. WHAT THEY SEE The Well of the Souls is a spooky chamber thirty feet deep. The walls are covered with hieroglyphics and carvings. The roof is supported intermittently by stone pillars, the closest of which hits the roof very near the entry hole. The Well is quite large; as Indy and Sallah wave their torches, more and more of the room is revealed. Now the far end of the chamber comes into view. There is a stone altar down there and on this elaborated carved platform is a stone chest, big enough to enclose the Lost Ark and protect it from the ravages of time. This altar appears to be the only place on the floor of the Well that is not covered by a strange, dark carpet of some kind. INDY The Ark must be in that stone case. What's that gray stuff all over the floor - He breaks off realizing exactly what that carpet is. He blanches. Indiana Jones blanches. Indy drops his torch to the floor of the Well. This is answered by the most horrific HISSING imaginable. WHAT HE SEES That think dark carpet is moving. It's alive. It's thousands and thousands of deadly poisonous snakes - Egyptian asps. And the only thing that seems capable of avoiding this venomous groundcover is the altar. The snakes ebb and flow near it, but never encroach on it, as though repelled by some invisible force. Indy shakes his head and talks to himself. INDY Why snakes? Why did it have to be snakes? Anything else. After a moment of this, he stops. He gathers his energy and resolve and gets back to the task. SALLAH Asps. Very dangerous. Where Indy's torch had landed is a circle of snake-free floor. The snakes hate the flame; they stay away. INDY Lots of torches. And oil. I want a landing strip down there. INT. THE WELL OF THE SOULS Fifteen torches have been dropped to the floor of the chamber, combining to make a good-sized clear zone. Smoke begins to fill the room. Several canisters of oil have been lowered into this space. Now, a large wooden crate is lowered slowly by rope. Rope handles are attached to each end of the crate. Up at the hole, Indy gives Sallah a reassuring pat, takes a breath, and swings carefully onto a rope hanging from the hole. Despite his care, he swings a bit and his feet hit the stone pillar which is so near the entry. Surprisingly, the pillar actually moves a bit, showering a light rain of crumbled stone to the floor below. Indy lands on the floor of the Well. He looks at the altar over a sea of undulating death. He picks up an oil canister and splashes two parallel lines of oil and lights them. A path six feet wide begins to open to the altar. Behind Indy, Sallah comes quickly down the rope. We begin to INTERCUT all the action in the Well from here on with insert shots of the snakes outside the flames. Snakes and snakes. We see: snakes piled and entwined six inches deep; mother snakes laying snake eggs; snake eggs hatching little snakes; snakes cannibalizing other snakes. INT. MARION'S TENT Belloq has been talking to the still-bound Marion. He has removed her gag. He is impatient, angry, uncomfortable. Caught between two forces. BELLOQ Believe me, you made a mistake. If you would just give me something to placate them. Some bit of information. MARION I swear to you, I know nothing more. I have no loyalty to Jones. He's brought me only trouble. He wants to believe her. BELLOQ I cannot control them. Marion's frightened look shifts suddenly to the entrance of the tent. There are new arrivals there - Shliemann, Gobler and Belzig. Belzig carries a black leather case. He steps forward and smiles at Marion. BELZIG We meet again, Fraulein. EXT. INDY'S DIG - JUST BEFORE DAWN The sky is just beginning to lighten over the dunes to the east, making dangerously obvious the thin column of smoke rising from the entrance to the Well. Omar and his men are peering through the smoke down into the Well. INT. THE WELL OF THE SOULS Indy and Sallah are on the altar. Pushing together with all their strength, the heavy stone top of the protective chest begins to slide away. Indy and Sallah exchange slightly wary but very excited looks, then continue to push. As the Ark begins to be exposed, the air seems to almost vibrate, to become electrostatically charged. We hear what sounds like a low HUM. The sea of snakes around the altar draws back further from this presence. As the top of the stone chest is pushed completely off and slams down beside it, we see THE LOST ARK OF THE COVENANT. It is awesomely beautiful, breathtaking. 4 feet long, 2.5 feet wide and 2.5 feet high. It's height, however, is increased by the two sculptured gold angels mounted facing each other on the top. Though the body of the Ark is acacia wood, it has been overlaid with gold. An elaborate gold crown surrounds the top edge and gold carrying rings are attached to each corner. Sallah is mesmerized by the sight. His hand starts to reach out and touch one of the angels, but Indy grabs it. INDY Don't touch it! Never touch it! The wooden crate stands open next to the stone chest. Now Indy extracts the wooden poles from its rings and begins fitting them through the rings in the Ark. This takes some maneuvering by the two men, but soon they are able to lift the Ark clear of the stone chest and into the wooden crate. They extract the poles, fasten the top of the crate and stick the poles through the rings of the wooden crate. They start back toward the space under the hole. The fire strips have begun to dwindle, as have some of the torches. The snakes move slowly in toward the clear spaces. Indy and Sallah eye them nervously as they hurry along with their heavy load. Under the hole, they hurriedly attach ropes to the wooden crate and it is pulled up. Indy's concentration is on the tide of snakes. INDY Hurry up! Why did it have to be snakes? Sallah takes the next rope and climbs quickly out of the Well. Indy has picked up a torch and now throws it at a pool of snakes who are too close for his comfort. He turns and takes hold of the exit rope. He gives it a first tug and it falls down into the Well, landing partly beyond the ring of fire where is instantly disappears in a tangle of angry, hissing asps. Indy looks up at the hole. INDY What the - Smiling down at him from the perimeter of the entry are Belloq, Shliemann and Gobler. BELLOQ Why, Dr. Jones, whatever are you doing in such a nasty place? Belloq and the Germans laugh. INDY Why don't you fellows come down here? I'll show you. BELLOQ No thank you, my friend. (he glances around him) I think we are all very comfortable up here. EXT. INDY'S DIG - DAWN Sunlight is flooding this tableau: Sallah, Omar and his men are being held at bay by ten armed Nazis. The wooden crate sits safely nearby. Belzig and another Nazi have the gagged Marion held in their rough grasp. BELLOQ (down to Indy) After all these years, it is most considerate of you to aid me in this way. As Belloq speaks, Shliemann exchanges a look with Belzig. Belzig smiles and takes the gag from Marion's mouth. INT. WELLS OF THE SOULS Shliemann smiles down at Indy. SHLIEMANN I'm afraid we must be going now, Dr. Jones. Our prize is awaited in Berlin. But I do not wish to leave you down in that awful place... (he give a sign) ...all alone. Belzig and the Nazi move Marion to the hole and, to Belloq's surprise, push her in. Marion falls thirty feet screaming. Indy drops his torch, braces, and catches her! Her weight knocks him to the ground, almost into the snakes. She looks around at the snakes, clinging to him more desperately as he struggles to his feet trying to unload her. MARION Don't put me down! Up at the hole, there's plenty of dissension. BELLOQ The girl was mine! SHLIEMANN She is of no use to us. Only our mission for the Fuhrer matters. Shliemann glances meaningfully around at the other Nazis. SHLIEMANN I wonder sometimes, Monsieur, if you have that clearly in mind. Belloq feels how much he is the outsider, his own vulnerability. He backs down with the wisdom of survival. He turns to look down at Indy and Marion. His manner is gallant. BELLOQ Goodbye, mademoiselle. (a pause, then with respect) Indiana Jones... adieu! Belloq and the others step back from the hole and unseen Nazis slam the heavy stone door into place. Marion screams. Her scream is accompanied by - A huge WHOOSH! as air is sucked out and the chamber is sealed. Half of the torches still burning go out with the sound. The remaining torches continue to extinguish at punctuating intervals throughout the following action and the snakes immediately flood into the newly-darkened spaces. Indy puts Marion down and snatches up two burning torches. He hands one to Marion. INDY Don't panic. There's plenty of time for that later. Wave that at anything that slithers. Indy holds his torch out like a lantern and begins a slow O- turn, his eyes peering into the gloom, examining every inch of wall and ceiling. MARION What are you doing? INDY Just watch the floor. Reminded of the encroaching snakes, Marion waves her torch at the nearest edge of their circle. She looks faint. Indy continues his slow turn. MARION Whatever you're doing, do it faster. INDY (he spots something) There! His head whips around, looking at the pillars around the room. He sees what he wants. He grabs one of the oil canisters, looks back to the spot on the wall he's chosen and splashes oil on the floor in that direction, then lights it. A path opens toward that wall. INDY Come on! Marion is frozen in her spot. Indy drags her after him. He splashes oil the rest of the way to the wall. It lights and Indy pulls Marion over to the wall. He pours the remaining oil in a circle around them, creating a safe zone there. INDY Stay here! MARION (grabbing him) Where are you going? INDY I'll be back in a minute. We're going through this wall. Marion looks at the wall, which looks like all the rest to her. She thinks he's crazy. INDY Just keep your eyes open and get ready to run. No matter what happens to me. MARION (panicked) What do you mean? Too late. Indy runs back through the path of flames to the center of the room. Snakes strike as his flying heels. Indy reaches the base of the pillar which he touched briefly on his original descent. He uses his torch to clear away the scattered snakes climbing on it, then pulls out his whip. He draws it back, then wraps is solidly around the pillar 15 feet up. With the torch in his mouth, he begins climbing the pillar. It moves ominously under his weight. The last two torches still burning on the floor go out. Now the only light in the chamber is provided by the torches held by Indy and Marion and the dwindling oil flames. Snakes move in and surround the base of Indy's pillar. The path between Marion and the center of the room is overrun. The circle of flame around Marion is dying down. She looks beyond it with terror-widened eyes, then up through the increasing smoke at the distant Indy. Near the top of the pillar, Indy's hands strain along his taut whip, which he has moves higher. A snake slithers into view there, inches from Indy's straining face. Indy turns his head so the torch in his mouth can burn it. The snake falls from the pillar. Indy's torch is dwindling. Indy works his body around so that he is on the side of the pillar away from Marion. The pillar moves, showering dust. Indy looks at the chamber wall five feet away, takes a breath and swings his legs up against it. He is now braced between pillar and wall. MARION (O.S.) (screaming) Where are you?! Snakes are moving in force up the pillar toward Indy's dwindling torch. Indy grasps the pillar for dear life, grimaces with exertion and pushes against the wall with all he's got. The pillar begins to break loose of the ceiling, then stops. Indy's eyes are on the torch. It is just a spot of flame now. Snakes are sliding up toward his hands. Indy again pushes against the wall and the torch falls out of his mouth. The pillar goes! In the dim light, we see it fall like a tree directly at Marion. Indy rides it down. The top hits the wall three feet from a cringing Marion and smashes through to a black chamber beyond. Indy flies off into the darkness. Gone. Marion clutches her torch at the black hole. MARION Indy! Where are you?! Please Lord! There is a moment that seems an eternity, then Indy appears like an apparition out of the void. INDY Come on! He grabs her and helps her over the remains of the wall into - INT. THE CATACOMBS The winding string of connected chambers is revealed to them only a few feet at a time as their torch lights the way. MARION The snakes... are they here? INDY I guess not. I think I'd be dead. MARION Do you know where you're going? INDY Absolutely. MARION Thank god. Where? INDY Out. They round a corner and flush a covey of bats. Marion screams. INDY Don't do that. It scares me. Marion gives him a look. They round a corner and begin a walk through a maze of chambers that present for their inspection: moldering mummies and stacked sarcophagi; a room decorated with a thousand human skulls; a wall crawling with huge scarabaeid beetles. Marion is quite naturally a nervous wreck; she jumps when Indy grabs her suddenly and points. INDY Look! WHAT THEY SEE There, coming through the crack in the corner of the next chamber, is white blessed sunlight. EXT. THE TANIS DIGS - NEAR AIRSTRIP - DAY Indy and Marion peek out into the light from the shadows of an abandoned excavation. Before them is the improvised airstrip serving the digs: a crude runway, a tent supply depot, two fuel tank trucks. Down by the fuel trucks a German Mechanic is looking skyward. Now Indy and Marion look there too, drawn by the roaring sound of - A Flying Wing, which is circling over the digs in preparation to landing. Now a new figure approaches the German Mechanic. It is Gobler; he yells to the mechanic, indicating the plane. GOBLER Get is gassed immediately! It has an important cargo to take out! In the distance, the Flying Wing lands and rolls toward the men. Gobler spins and heads back toward the main camp, which is hidden from view by a rise. Indy and Marion watch him go. INDY When the Ark gets loaded, we're already going to be on that plane. The Flying Wing rolls up into the space near the fuel trucks. The German Mechanic puts blue blocks in front of the tires as the engines continue to roar. Indy and Marion run in a crouch to a hiding spot closer to the plane, near the supply tent. Suddenly, a Second German Mechanic appears behind them. He is as surprised as they are, but recovers quickly and swings a big monkey wrench at Indy. Indy grabs the swinging arm and the two men tumble out into the open, wrestling. Marion remains hidden, moving fast among the crates. The first German Mechanic, who is just pulling the fuel hose from the tank truck to the plane, sees the combatants and runs to help his countryman. He is almost upon them when Indy puts the Second German away with a devastating left - right - left combination. He turns to find the first German Mechanic flying at him. The roll toward the rear of the Flying Wing and its lethally spinning reversed propellers. In the cockpit of the Flying Wing, the Pilot has been fiddling with his gauges just prior to shutting off his engines. Now he notices the fight going on outside. The fistfight between Indy and the German Mechanic has taken on a new stomach-tightening dimension. The men are fighting and flailing in and out between the spinning props at the back of the plane's wings. Each man comes within inches of becoming instant mincemeat. The Pilot slides away the top of his cockpit and stands up. He pulls a Luger from his side and points it, waiting for a clear shot at Indy. The German Mechanic kicks Indy away from him and the Pilot aims his pistol. Suddenly, Marion appears behind the Pilot, standing on the opposite wing, and bashes him over the head with one of the blue blocks that was holding the tires. The Pilot drops down into the cockpit, his body falling on the throttle. The engines roar louder, revving up. The plane begins to roll, rotating around its one still- blocked set of tires. Marion grabs onto the cockpit to keep from slipping into the props. She bends into the cockpit, trying to pull the Pilot's body off the throttle. No luck. She grimaces and climbs inside. Her shoulder bumps the top of the cockpit; it slides tightly shut above her. Under the moving wing, Indy delivers a knockout rightcross to the German Mechanic which sends him staggering back toward a roaring propeller. Indy's grimace registers the man's demise and a fine mist of blood wafts toward him. Indy spins toward the sound of crumpling metal and sees - The other prop of the Flying Wing slice into a tank truck. The airplane fuel inside floods out onto the pavement, surrounding the plane. Indy backpedals away from the plane, his eyes searching the scene for Marion. Suddenly, he is shocked to see her in the cockpit. He runs toward her, skidding through the gasoline. INDY Get out! Get out! Marion is struggling with the top of the cockpit. She can't budge it. She's trapped. EXT. THE COMMAND TENT - DAY Three Armed Nazis stand guard around the wooden crate containing the Ark. It is sitting near the flopped-open entrance to the Command Tent and there is furious activity going on here. Belloq, Shliemann, Gobler, Belzig and assorted Aides are packing up all the papers and personal items in preparation for a hasty departure. A large crowd of Arab Diggers is milling about among the tents. They all want to get a look at the Ark. Sallah is among them. All at once, there is a earthshaking explosion. Al eyes turn toward the rise that hides the airstrip. A huge fireball floats into view over there. Everyone starts running toward it. Shliemann yells at Belzig and the Armed Nazis. SHLIEMANN Stay with the Ark! EXT. THE RISE ABOVE AIRSTRIP - DAY Almost all the Arabs and Germans in the digs have congregated here and are staring at the burning remains of the Flying Wing. Belloq and Shliemann arrive just as the second fuel truck blows up. The concussion knocks many of the observers flat. Belloq, Shliemann and Gobler watch the scene in alarm. SHLIEMANN Sabotage! BELLOQ We must get the Ark away from this place immediately! SHLIEMANN (to Gobler) Have it put on the truck. We'll fly out of Cairo. Gobler snaps his heels, turns to go. SHLIEMANN And Gobler - (Gobler stops) I want plenty of protection. Gobler nods and runs off. Shliemann heads back toward camp. Belloq hesitates a long moment, studying the burning wreckage with an odd, suspicious look. Finally, he turns and leaves, passing a nearby stack of barrels. When he has passed, Sallah appears from among the barrels. He searches the crowd for his people and starts a broken field run along some tents to avoid a group of Germans and is running flat-out when someone sticks out a leg and sends him flipping. Sallah, dust all over his face, looks angrily toward the concealed culprit. At once, a flashing white grin splits his darkened face. Indy and Marion, splotched with soot and oil, are hiding in the flap of a tent. Sallah runs into their arms and the three embrace warmly. When they break - SALLAH Holy smoke, my friends! I am so pleased you are not dead. MARION Us too. SALLAH (suddenly remembering) The Ark! They're taking it on a truck to Cairo. INDY Where is it? Sallah gestures to follow and all three run off stealthily through the mostly deserted camp. EXT. AMONG THE TENTS - DAY Sallah, Indy and Marion run into a hiding spot behind some water barrels near the Command Tent. They peek out at this activity - In the big space near the Command Tent is parked an open German staff car; inside is a

here

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

within a fraction of an inch of the tiny hole in its sun. The edge of the sunlight moving across the miniature city is still a good two feet beyond the spot Belloq has settled on. And now that line of light is broken by the shadow of an ornate sun at the top of the staff. Indy's face reflects his concentration. And then his immense pleasure. He sees what he came for. Out of the miniature city, one small building is being lit by a tiny beam of sunlight in the center of the shadow of the metal sun. And by some trick of ancient artistry, this one building responds to the sunlight like none of the others. The golden light permeates it: it seems to glow. The building is in a direct line with Belloq's - all the Frenchman's other calculations were right - but it is a foot and a half beyond it. EXT. IN THE CAMP - DAY Sallah, sweating profusely, has finished serving the line of Breakfasting Germans and now heads back to replace the kettle and get away. HUNGRY GERMAN Water. Bring us water. INT. MAP ROOM Indy is on his knees at the miniature city, a special tape measure in his hand. Indy has the tape strung from Belloq's mistaken spot to his own correct spot. He gets his reading, leaps up and crosses to the erect staff. He pulls the headpiece off the staff and hides it in his robes. He quickly breaks the wooden staff in two and throws the pieces behind a pile of debris. Then he moves quickly to beneath the skylight. INDY (stage whisper) Sallah. (he waits, then louder) Sallah! More waiting. Nothing. Indy looks around for some alternative means of escape. The room doesn't offer any. He looks up at the skylight again. INDY (loudest) Sallah! A long pause. Then something comes down. A makeshift rope. Really just a bunch of clothing tied together - tunics, robes, pants. But what we see first and most prominently, the first section of Indy's escape rope, is a bright Nazi flag. Indy beams and climbs. EXT. ABOVE THE MAP ROOM - DAY Indy sticks his head out the skylight, sees it clear and flops his body out. Sallah, crouching behind the oil drum, immediately starts pulling in the makeshift rope. Sallah stuffs the rope in the oil drum and the two men begin waking toward some tents. HUNGRY GERMAN (O.S.) Hey, you! More water over here! Sallah glances at Indy, Then hurries back in that direction. The Hungry German focuses on Indy. HUNGRY GERMAN Why aren't you at the digs? Come here! Indy bows in wild subservience and hurries off in the opposite direction. HUNGRY GERMAN (yelling after him, irritated) No, dummkopf, I said come! EXT. BETWEEN TWO TENTS - DAY Indy hustles between the tents. Up ahead, two German Officers stop to talk, blocking his exit. He moves along the side of one of the tents until he finds an opening and slips inside. INT. THE TENT Indy finds himself in a tent set up for rather comfortable living. He has just started to cross it when he hears a loud, excited grunting. He turns toward the sound. In the corner, tied to a chair and gagged is Marion. Indy rushes to her, snatches the gag from her mouth and embraces her. They kiss, deep and long. INDY I though you were dead. MARION They were throwing me around like a rag doll. INDY They must have switched baskets. Thank god for that! Bless those bastards. Have they hurt you? MARION No. Not since I got here. They just asked about you - what you knew. The Frenchman's got the hot's for me. I've been playing that along. Oh, Indy, get me out of here. Indy pulls out a knife and then stops suddenly, thinking. MARION What's wrong? INDY (putting the knife away) I have to leave you here for a little while. I know where the Ark is. If I take you out of here they'll start combing the place for us. MARION (louder) Cut me loose! INDY Keep your voice down. MARION (screaming) I said get me out of - Indy pops the gag back in her mouth. Her eyes widen in fury and she grunts obscenities at him. INDY Look, you don't know how glad I am to see you. And I don't like doing this. But the whole thing will be shot if you don't just sit here quietly. They haven't hurt you in the last twenty-four hours, they aren't going to start now. I'll be back to get you in no time. He kisses her forehead, jumps up and hurries out of the tent. EXT. SAND DUNE OUTSIDE DIGS - DAY With the digs behind them, Indy and Sallah run up to the ridge of the dune and over the top. At the bottom of the far side, Omar's truck is parked. Omar and his men are waiting. EXT. DIFFERENT DUNE - DAY This new spot gives Indy a higher, better view of the whole scene. Indy is using a surveyor's instrument to take a reading - WHAT HE SEES Looking through the instrument, Indy gets a line from the map room through the site where the Nazis are digging in the dunes to a spot several dunes over. We focus on that virgin spot of well-hidden sand as - INDY There! EXT. INDY'S DIG - DAY Omar's truck is parked at the spot just viewed from afar. Dunes rise on either side. One of Omar's men has been posted as a lookout up on a ridge. Everybody else - Indy, Sallah, Omar, and his men - have begun digging for the Wells of the Souls. DISSOLVE TO: SAME SCENE - NIGHT They continue to dig furiously, all of them drenched in sweat. The hole has grown but this is slow, back-breaking work. INT. COMMAND TENT - TANIS DIGS - NIGHT Belloq, SHLIEMANN the ranking Nazi, and Shliemann's Aide, GOBLER, come into the tent, which is full of charts and maps, drawings of the Ark, radio equipment, liquor and food. The men have been out digging for the Well all day. They are tired, discouraged, testy. In all matters, Gobler shows his alliance with Shliemann against Belloq with small looks and body language. The Frenchman has disappointed them and he is feeling the isolation of a scapegoat. Belloq gets himself a drink as Shliemann towels off his face. BELLOQ I cautioned you about being premature with that communiqu to Berlin. Archeology is not an exact science. If does not adhere to time schedules. SHLIEMANN The Fuhrer is not a patient man. He demands constant reports and he expects progress. You led me to believe - BELLOQ Nothing. I have made no promises. I said only that it looked very favorable. Perhaps the Ark will still be found in an adjoining chamber. Based on the information in our possession, my calculations were correct. Perhaps some bit of evidence still eludes us. Perhaps GOBLER Perhaps the girl can help us. Belloq shoots him an angry look. SHLIEMANN My feeling exactly. She was in possession of the original piece for years. She may know much. (really evil) If properly motivated... BELLOQ I tell you, she knows nothing useful. SHLIEMANN I'm surprised to find you squeamish. That is not your reputation. But it needn't concern you. I have the perfect man for this kind of work. Shliemann signals Gobler, who steps outside the tent a moment, calls someone and then reappears. Belloq looks warily at the entrance. After a moment Belzig enters, reeking villainy. When his eyes find Shliemann, his superior, he snaps a crisp "Heil, Hitler!" at him, holding his palm rigid a long time, exposing a burned scar in the prefect shape of the sun medallion. EXT. INDY'S DIG - NIGHT In the eerie conjunction of moonlight and torchlight, Indy and the other men step back in awe of their discovery: there, flush with the bottom of their pit, is a heavy stone entry door to an underground chamber. Special prying tools are produced. With two men assigned to each of the two long tools, they work in unison to open the vault. They open it a foot and the other men rush in to flop the heavy door completely open. Down inside, only blackness. The men quickly prostrate themselves around the edge of the entry to look inside. Indy and Sallah each take a torch and hold them down the hole. WHAT THEY SEE The Well of the Souls is a spooky chamber thirty feet deep. The walls are covered with hieroglyphics and carvings. The roof is supported intermittently by stone pillars, the closest of which hits the roof very near the entry hole. The Well is quite large; as Indy and Sallah wave their torches, more and more of the room is revealed. Now the far end of the chamber comes into view. There is a stone altar down there and on this elaborated carved platform is a stone chest, big enough to enclose the Lost Ark and protect it from the ravages of time. This altar appears to be the only place on the floor of the Well that is not covered by a strange, dark carpet of some kind. INDY The Ark must be in that stone case. What's that gray stuff all over the floor - He breaks off realizing exactly what that carpet is. He blanches. Indiana Jones blanches. Indy drops his torch to the floor of the Well. This is answered by the most horrific HISSING imaginable. WHAT HE SEES That think dark carpet is moving. It's alive. It's thousands and thousands of deadly poisonous snakes - Egyptian asps. And the only thing that seems capable of avoiding this venomous groundcover is the altar. The snakes ebb and flow near it, but never encroach on it, as though repelled by some invisible force. Indy shakes his head and talks to himself. INDY Why snakes? Why did it have to be snakes? Anything else. After a moment of this, he stops. He gathers his energy and resolve and gets back to the task. SALLAH Asps. Very dangerous. Where Indy's torch had landed is a circle of snake-free floor. The snakes hate the flame; they stay away. INDY Lots of torches. And oil. I want a landing strip down there. INT. THE WELL OF THE SOULS Fifteen torches have been dropped to the floor of the chamber, combining to make a good-sized clear zone. Smoke begins to fill the room. Several canisters of oil have been lowered into this space. Now, a large wooden crate is lowered slowly by rope. Rope handles are attached to each end of the crate. Up at the hole, Indy gives Sallah a reassuring pat, takes a breath, and swings carefully onto a rope hanging from the hole. Despite his care, he swings a bit and his feet hit the stone pillar which is so near the entry. Surprisingly, the pillar actually moves a bit, showering a light rain of crumbled stone to the floor below. Indy lands on the floor of the Well. He looks at the altar over a sea of undulating death. He picks up an oil canister and splashes two parallel lines of oil and lights them. A path six feet wide begins to open to the altar. Behind Indy, Sallah comes quickly down the rope. We begin to INTERCUT all the action in the Well from here on with insert shots of the snakes outside the flames. Snakes and snakes. We see: snakes piled and entwined six inches deep; mother snakes laying snake eggs; snake eggs hatching little snakes; snakes cannibalizing other snakes. INT. MARION'S TENT Belloq has been talking to the still-bound Marion. He has removed her gag. He is impatient, angry, uncomfortable. Caught between two forces. BELLOQ Believe me, you made a mistake. If you would just give me something to placate them. Some bit of information. MARION I swear to you, I know nothing more. I have no loyalty to Jones. He's brought me only trouble. He wants to believe her. BELLOQ I cannot control them. Marion's frightened look shifts suddenly to the entrance of the tent. There are new arrivals there - Shliemann, Gobler and Belzig. Belzig carries a black leather case. He steps forward and smiles at Marion. BELZIG We meet again, Fraulein. EXT. INDY'S DIG - JUST BEFORE DAWN The sky is just beginning to lighten over the dunes to the east, making dangerously obvious the thin column of smoke rising from the entrance to the Well. Omar and his men are peering through the smoke down into the Well. INT. THE WELL OF THE SOULS Indy and Sallah are on the altar. Pushing together with all their strength, the heavy stone top of the protective chest begins to slide away. Indy and Sallah exchange slightly wary but very excited looks, then continue to push. As the Ark begins to be exposed, the air seems to almost vibrate, to become electrostatically charged. We hear what sounds like a low HUM. The sea of snakes around the altar draws back further from this presence. As the top of the stone chest is pushed completely off and slams down beside it, we see THE LOST ARK OF THE COVENANT. It is awesomely beautiful, breathtaking. 4 feet long, 2.5 feet wide and 2.5 feet high. It's height, however, is increased by the two sculptured gold angels mounted facing each other on the top. Though the body of the Ark is acacia wood, it has been overlaid with gold. An elaborate gold crown surrounds the top edge and gold carrying rings are attached to each corner. Sallah is mesmerized by the sight. His hand starts to reach out and touch one of the angels, but Indy grabs it. INDY Don't touch it! Never touch it! The wooden crate stands open next to the stone chest. Now Indy extracts the wooden poles from its rings and begins fitting them through the rings in the Ark. This takes some maneuvering by the two men, but soon they are able to lift the Ark clear of the stone chest and into the wooden crate. They extract the poles, fasten the top of the crate and stick the poles through the rings of the wooden crate. They start back toward the space under the hole. The fire strips have begun to dwindle, as have some of the torches. The snakes move slowly in toward the clear spaces. Indy and Sallah eye them nervously as they hurry along with their heavy load. Under the hole, they hurriedly attach ropes to the wooden crate and it is pulled up. Indy's concentration is on the tide of snakes. INDY Hurry up! Why did it have to be snakes? Sallah takes the next rope and climbs quickly out of the Well. Indy has picked up a torch and now throws it at a pool of snakes who are too close for his comfort. He turns and takes hold of the exit rope. He gives it a first tug and it falls down into the Well, landing partly beyond the ring of fire where is instantly disappears in a tangle of angry, hissing asps. Indy looks up at the hole. INDY What the - Smiling down at him from the perimeter of the entry are Belloq, Shliemann and Gobler. BELLOQ Why, Dr. Jones, whatever are you doing in such a nasty place? Belloq and the Germans laugh. INDY Why don't you fellows come down here? I'll show you. BELLOQ No thank you, my friend. (he glances around him) I think we are all very comfortable up here. EXT. INDY'S DIG - DAWN Sunlight is flooding this tableau: Sallah, Omar and his men are being held at bay by ten armed Nazis. The wooden crate sits safely nearby. Belzig and another Nazi have the gagged Marion held in their rough grasp. BELLOQ (down to Indy) After all these years, it is most considerate of you to aid me in this way. As Belloq speaks, Shliemann exchanges a look with Belzig. Belzig smiles and takes the gag from Marion's mouth. INT. WELLS OF THE SOULS Shliemann smiles down at Indy. SHLIEMANN I'm afraid we must be going now, Dr. Jones. Our prize is awaited in Berlin. But I do not wish to leave you down in that awful place... (he give a sign) ...all alone. Belzig and the Nazi move Marion to the hole and, to Belloq's surprise, push her in. Marion falls thirty feet screaming. Indy drops his torch, braces, and catches her! Her weight knocks him to the ground, almost into the snakes. She looks around at the snakes, clinging to him more desperately as he struggles to his feet trying to unload her. MARION Don't put me down! Up at the hole, there's plenty of dissension. BELLOQ The girl was mine! SHLIEMANN She is of no use to us. Only our mission for the Fuhrer matters. Shliemann glances meaningfully around at the other Nazis. SHLIEMANN I wonder sometimes, Monsieur, if you have that clearly in mind. Belloq feels how much he is the outsider, his own vulnerability. He backs down with the wisdom of survival. He turns to look down at Indy and Marion. His manner is gallant. BELLOQ Goodbye, mademoiselle. (a pause, then with respect) Indiana Jones... adieu! Belloq and the others step back from the hole and unseen Nazis slam the heavy stone door into place. Marion screams. Her scream is accompanied by - A huge WHOOSH! as air is sucked out and the chamber is sealed. Half of the torches still burning go out with the sound. The remaining torches continue to extinguish at punctuating intervals throughout the following action and the snakes immediately flood into the newly-darkened spaces. Indy puts Marion down and snatches up two burning torches. He hands one to Marion. INDY Don't panic. There's plenty of time for that later. Wave that at anything that slithers. Indy holds his torch out like a lantern and begins a slow O- turn, his eyes peering into the gloom, examining every inch of wall and ceiling. MARION What are you doing? INDY Just watch the floor. Reminded of the encroaching snakes, Marion waves her torch at the nearest edge of their circle. She looks faint. Indy continues his slow turn. MARION Whatever you're doing, do it faster. INDY (he spots something) There! His head whips around, looking at the pillars around the room. He sees what he wants. He grabs one of the oil canisters, looks back to the spot on the wall he's chosen and splashes oil on the floor in that direction, then lights it. A path opens toward that wall. INDY Come on! Marion is frozen in her spot. Indy drags her after him. He splashes oil the rest of the way to the wall. It lights and Indy pulls Marion over to the wall. He pours the remaining oil in a circle around them, creating a safe zone there. INDY Stay here! MARION (grabbing him) Where are you going? INDY I'll be back in a minute. We're going through this wall. Marion looks at the wall, which looks like all the rest to her. She thinks he's crazy. INDY Just keep your eyes open and get ready to run. No matter what happens to me. MARION (panicked) What do you mean? Too late. Indy runs back through the path of flames to the center of the room. Snakes strike as his flying heels. Indy reaches the base of the pillar which he touched briefly on his original descent. He uses his torch to clear away the scattered snakes climbing on it, then pulls out his whip. He draws it back, then wraps is solidly around the pillar 15 feet up. With the torch in his mouth, he begins climbing the pillar. It moves ominously under his weight. The last two torches still burning on the floor go out. Now the only light in the chamber is provided by the torches held by Indy and Marion and the dwindling oil flames. Snakes move in and surround the base of Indy's pillar. The path between Marion and the center of the room is overrun. The circle of flame around Marion is dying down. She looks beyond it with terror-widened eyes, then up through the increasing smoke at the distant Indy. Near the top of the pillar, Indy's hands strain along his taut whip, which he has moves higher. A snake slithers into view there, inches from Indy's straining face. Indy turns his head so the torch in his mouth can burn it. The snake falls from the pillar. Indy's torch is dwindling. Indy works his body around so that he is on the side of the pillar away from Marion. The pillar moves, showering dust. Indy looks at the chamber wall five feet away, takes a breath and swings his legs up against it. He is now braced between pillar and wall. MARION (O.S.) (screaming) Where are you?! Snakes are moving in force up the pillar toward Indy's dwindling torch. Indy grasps the pillar for dear life, grimaces with exertion and pushes against the wall with all he's got. The pillar begins to break loose of the ceiling, then stops. Indy's eyes are on the torch. It is just a spot of flame now. Snakes are sliding up toward his hands. Indy again pushes against the wall and the torch falls out of his mouth. The pillar goes! In the dim light, we see it fall like a tree directly at Marion. Indy rides it down. The top hits the wall three feet from a cringing Marion and smashes through to a black chamber beyond. Indy flies off into the darkness. Gone. Marion clutches her torch at the black hole. MARION Indy! Where are you?! Please Lord! There is a moment that seems an eternity, then Indy appears like an apparition out of the void. INDY Come on! He grabs her and helps her over the remains of the wall into - INT. THE CATACOMBS The winding string of connected chambers is revealed to them only a few feet at a time as their torch lights the way. MARION The snakes... are they here? INDY I guess not. I think I'd be dead. MARION Do you know where you're going? INDY Absolutely. MARION Thank god. Where? INDY Out. They round a corner and flush a covey of bats. Marion screams. INDY Don't do that. It scares me. Marion gives him a look. They round a corner and begin a walk through a maze of chambers that present for their inspection: moldering mummies and stacked sarcophagi; a room decorated with a thousand human skulls; a wall crawling with huge scarabaeid beetles. Marion is quite naturally a nervous wreck; she jumps when Indy grabs her suddenly and points. INDY Look! WHAT THEY SEE There, coming through the crack in the corner of the next chamber, is white blessed sunlight. EXT. THE TANIS DIGS - NEAR AIRSTRIP - DAY Indy and Marion peek out into the light from the shadows of an abandoned excavation. Before them is the improvised airstrip serving the digs: a crude runway, a tent supply depot, two fuel tank trucks. Down by the fuel trucks a German Mechanic is looking skyward. Now Indy and Marion look there too, drawn by the roaring sound of - A Flying Wing, which is circling over the digs in preparation to landing. Now a new figure approaches the German Mechanic. It is Gobler; he yells to the mechanic, indicating the plane. GOBLER Get is gassed immediately! It has an important cargo to take out! In the distance, the Flying Wing lands and rolls toward the men. Gobler spins and heads back toward the main camp, which is hidden from view by a rise. Indy and Marion watch him go. INDY When the Ark gets loaded, we're already going to be on that plane. The Flying Wing rolls up into the space near the fuel trucks. The German Mechanic puts blue blocks in front of the tires as the engines continue to roar. Indy and Marion run in a crouch to a hiding spot closer to the plane, near the supply tent. Suddenly, a Second German Mechanic appears behind them. He is as surprised as they are, but recovers quickly and swings a big monkey wrench at Indy. Indy grabs the swinging arm and the two men tumble out into the open, wrestling. Marion remains hidden, moving fast among the crates. The first German Mechanic, who is just pulling the fuel hose from the tank truck to the plane, sees the combatants and runs to help his countryman. He is almost upon them when Indy puts the Second German away with a devastating left - right - left combination. He turns to find the first German Mechanic flying at him. The roll toward the rear of the Flying Wing and its lethally spinning reversed propellers. In the cockpit of the Flying Wing, the Pilot has been fiddling with his gauges just prior to shutting off his engines. Now he notices the fight going on outside. The fistfight between Indy and the German Mechanic has taken on a new stomach-tightening dimension. The men are fighting and flailing in and out between the spinning props at the back of the plane's wings. Each man comes within inches of becoming instant mincemeat. The Pilot slides away the top of his cockpit and stands up. He pulls a Luger from his side and points it, waiting for a clear shot at Indy. The German Mechanic kicks Indy away from him and the Pilot aims his pistol. Suddenly, Marion appears behind the Pilot, standing on the opposite wing, and bashes him over the head with one of the blue blocks that was holding the tires. The Pilot drops down into the cockpit, his body falling on the throttle. The engines roar louder, revving up. The plane begins to roll, rotating around its one still- blocked set of tires. Marion grabs onto the cockpit to keep from slipping into the props. She bends into the cockpit, trying to pull the Pilot's body off the throttle. No luck. She grimaces and climbs inside. Her shoulder bumps the top of the cockpit; it slides tightly shut above her. Under the moving wing, Indy delivers a knockout rightcross to the German Mechanic which sends him staggering back toward a roaring propeller. Indy's grimace registers the man's demise and a fine mist of blood wafts toward him. Indy spins toward the sound of crumpling metal and sees - The other prop of the Flying Wing slice into a tank truck. The airplane fuel inside floods out onto the pavement, surrounding the plane. Indy backpedals away from the plane, his eyes searching the scene for Marion. Suddenly, he is shocked to see her in the cockpit. He runs toward her, skidding through the gasoline. INDY Get out! Get out! Marion is struggling with the top of the cockpit. She can't budge it. She's trapped. EXT. THE COMMAND TENT - DAY Three Armed Nazis stand guard around the wooden crate containing the Ark. It is sitting near the flopped-open entrance to the Command Tent and there is furious activity going on here. Belloq, Shliemann, Gobler, Belzig and assorted Aides are packing up all the papers and personal items in preparation for a hasty departure. A large crowd of Arab Diggers is milling about among the tents. They all want to get a look at the Ark. Sallah is among them. All at once, there is a earthshaking explosion. Al eyes turn toward the rise that hides the airstrip. A huge fireball floats into view over there. Everyone starts running toward it. Shliemann yells at Belzig and the Armed Nazis. SHLIEMANN Stay with the Ark! EXT. THE RISE ABOVE AIRSTRIP - DAY Almost all the Arabs and Germans in the digs have congregated here and are staring at the burning remains of the Flying Wing. Belloq and Shliemann arrive just as the second fuel truck blows up. The concussion knocks many of the observers flat. Belloq, Shliemann and Gobler watch the scene in alarm. SHLIEMANN Sabotage! BELLOQ We must get the Ark away from this place immediately! SHLIEMANN (to Gobler) Have it put on the truck. We'll fly out of Cairo. Gobler snaps his heels, turns to go. SHLIEMANN And Gobler - (Gobler stops) I want plenty of protection. Gobler nods and runs off. Shliemann heads back toward camp. Belloq hesitates a long moment, studying the burning wreckage with an odd, suspicious look. Finally, he turns and leaves, passing a nearby stack of barrels. When he has passed, Sallah appears from among the barrels. He searches the crowd for his people and starts a broken field run along some tents to avoid a group of Germans and is running flat-out when someone sticks out a leg and sends him flipping. Sallah, dust all over his face, looks angrily toward the concealed culprit. At once, a flashing white grin splits his darkened face. Indy and Marion, splotched with soot and oil, are hiding in the flap of a tent. Sallah runs into their arms and the three embrace warmly. When they break - SALLAH Holy smoke, my friends! I am so pleased you are not dead. MARION Us too. SALLAH (suddenly remembering) The Ark! They're taking it on a truck to Cairo. INDY Where is it? Sallah gestures to follow and all three run off stealthily through the mostly deserted camp. EXT. AMONG THE TENTS - DAY Sallah, Indy and Marion run into a hiding spot behind some water barrels near the Command Tent. They peek out at this activity - In the big space near the Command Tent is parked an open German staff car; inside is a

after

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within a fraction of an inch of the tiny hole in its sun. The edge of the sunlight moving across the miniature city is still a good two feet beyond the spot Belloq has settled on. And now that line of light is broken by the shadow of an ornate sun at the top of the staff. Indy's face reflects his concentration. And then his immense pleasure. He sees what he came for. Out of the miniature city, one small building is being lit by a tiny beam of sunlight in the center of the shadow of the metal sun. And by some trick of ancient artistry, this one building responds to the sunlight like none of the others. The golden light permeates it: it seems to glow. The building is in a direct line with Belloq's - all the Frenchman's other calculations were right - but it is a foot and a half beyond it. EXT. IN THE CAMP - DAY Sallah, sweating profusely, has finished serving the line of Breakfasting Germans and now heads back to replace the kettle and get away. HUNGRY GERMAN Water. Bring us water. INT. MAP ROOM Indy is on his knees at the miniature city, a special tape measure in his hand. Indy has the tape strung from Belloq's mistaken spot to his own correct spot. He gets his reading, leaps up and crosses to the erect staff. He pulls the headpiece off the staff and hides it in his robes. He quickly breaks the wooden staff in two and throws the pieces behind a pile of debris. Then he moves quickly to beneath the skylight. INDY (stage whisper) Sallah. (he waits, then louder) Sallah! More waiting. Nothing. Indy looks around for some alternative means of escape. The room doesn't offer any. He looks up at the skylight again. INDY (loudest) Sallah! A long pause. Then something comes down. A makeshift rope. Really just a bunch of clothing tied together - tunics, robes, pants. But what we see first and most prominently, the first section of Indy's escape rope, is a bright Nazi flag. Indy beams and climbs. EXT. ABOVE THE MAP ROOM - DAY Indy sticks his head out the skylight, sees it clear and flops his body out. Sallah, crouching behind the oil drum, immediately starts pulling in the makeshift rope. Sallah stuffs the rope in the oil drum and the two men begin waking toward some tents. HUNGRY GERMAN (O.S.) Hey, you! More water over here! Sallah glances at Indy, Then hurries back in that direction. The Hungry German focuses on Indy. HUNGRY GERMAN Why aren't you at the digs? Come here! Indy bows in wild subservience and hurries off in the opposite direction. HUNGRY GERMAN (yelling after him, irritated) No, dummkopf, I said come! EXT. BETWEEN TWO TENTS - DAY Indy hustles between the tents. Up ahead, two German Officers stop to talk, blocking his exit. He moves along the side of one of the tents until he finds an opening and slips inside. INT. THE TENT Indy finds himself in a tent set up for rather comfortable living. He has just started to cross it when he hears a loud, excited grunting. He turns toward the sound. In the corner, tied to a chair and gagged is Marion. Indy rushes to her, snatches the gag from her mouth and embraces her. They kiss, deep and long. INDY I though you were dead. MARION They were throwing me around like a rag doll. INDY They must have switched baskets. Thank god for that! Bless those bastards. Have they hurt you? MARION No. Not since I got here. They just asked about you - what you knew. The Frenchman's got the hot's for me. I've been playing that along. Oh, Indy, get me out of here. Indy pulls out a knife and then stops suddenly, thinking. MARION What's wrong? INDY (putting the knife away) I have to leave you here for a little while. I know where the Ark is. If I take you out of here they'll start combing the place for us. MARION (louder) Cut me loose! INDY Keep your voice down. MARION (screaming) I said get me out of - Indy pops the gag back in her mouth. Her eyes widen in fury and she grunts obscenities at him. INDY Look, you don't know how glad I am to see you. And I don't like doing this. But the whole thing will be shot if you don't just sit here quietly. They haven't hurt you in the last twenty-four hours, they aren't going to start now. I'll be back to get you in no time. He kisses her forehead, jumps up and hurries out of the tent. EXT. SAND DUNE OUTSIDE DIGS - DAY With the digs behind them, Indy and Sallah run up to the ridge of the dune and over the top. At the bottom of the far side, Omar's truck is parked. Omar and his men are waiting. EXT. DIFFERENT DUNE - DAY This new spot gives Indy a higher, better view of the whole scene. Indy is using a surveyor's instrument to take a reading - WHAT HE SEES Looking through the instrument, Indy gets a line from the map room through the site where the Nazis are digging in the dunes to a spot several dunes over. We focus on that virgin spot of well-hidden sand as - INDY There! EXT. INDY'S DIG - DAY Omar's truck is parked at the spot just viewed from afar. Dunes rise on either side. One of Omar's men has been posted as a lookout up on a ridge. Everybody else - Indy, Sallah, Omar, and his men - have begun digging for the Wells of the Souls. DISSOLVE TO: SAME SCENE - NIGHT They continue to dig furiously, all of them drenched in sweat. The hole has grown but this is slow, back-breaking work. INT. COMMAND TENT - TANIS DIGS - NIGHT Belloq, SHLIEMANN the ranking Nazi, and Shliemann's Aide, GOBLER, come into the tent, which is full of charts and maps, drawings of the Ark, radio equipment, liquor and food. The men have been out digging for the Well all day. They are tired, discouraged, testy. In all matters, Gobler shows his alliance with Shliemann against Belloq with small looks and body language. The Frenchman has disappointed them and he is feeling the isolation of a scapegoat. Belloq gets himself a drink as Shliemann towels off his face. BELLOQ I cautioned you about being premature with that communiqu to Berlin. Archeology is not an exact science. If does not adhere to time schedules. SHLIEMANN The Fuhrer is not a patient man. He demands constant reports and he expects progress. You led me to believe - BELLOQ Nothing. I have made no promises. I said only that it looked very favorable. Perhaps the Ark will still be found in an adjoining chamber. Based on the information in our possession, my calculations were correct. Perhaps some bit of evidence still eludes us. Perhaps GOBLER Perhaps the girl can help us. Belloq shoots him an angry look. SHLIEMANN My feeling exactly. She was in possession of the original piece for years. She may know much. (really evil) If properly motivated... BELLOQ I tell you, she knows nothing useful. SHLIEMANN I'm surprised to find you squeamish. That is not your reputation. But it needn't concern you. I have the perfect man for this kind of work. Shliemann signals Gobler, who steps outside the tent a moment, calls someone and then reappears. Belloq looks warily at the entrance. After a moment Belzig enters, reeking villainy. When his eyes find Shliemann, his superior, he snaps a crisp "Heil, Hitler!" at him, holding his palm rigid a long time, exposing a burned scar in the prefect shape of the sun medallion. EXT. INDY'S DIG - NIGHT In the eerie conjunction of moonlight and torchlight, Indy and the other men step back in awe of their discovery: there, flush with the bottom of their pit, is a heavy stone entry door to an underground chamber. Special prying tools are produced. With two men assigned to each of the two long tools, they work in unison to open the vault. They open it a foot and the other men rush in to flop the heavy door completely open. Down inside, only blackness. The men quickly prostrate themselves around the edge of the entry to look inside. Indy and Sallah each take a torch and hold them down the hole. WHAT THEY SEE The Well of the Souls is a spooky chamber thirty feet deep. The walls are covered with hieroglyphics and carvings. The roof is supported intermittently by stone pillars, the closest of which hits the roof very near the entry hole. The Well is quite large; as Indy and Sallah wave their torches, more and more of the room is revealed. Now the far end of the chamber comes into view. There is a stone altar down there and on this elaborated carved platform is a stone chest, big enough to enclose the Lost Ark and protect it from the ravages of time. This altar appears to be the only place on the floor of the Well that is not covered by a strange, dark carpet of some kind. INDY The Ark must be in that stone case. What's that gray stuff all over the floor - He breaks off realizing exactly what that carpet is. He blanches. Indiana Jones blanches. Indy drops his torch to the floor of the Well. This is answered by the most horrific HISSING imaginable. WHAT HE SEES That think dark carpet is moving. It's alive. It's thousands and thousands of deadly poisonous snakes - Egyptian asps. And the only thing that seems capable of avoiding this venomous groundcover is the altar. The snakes ebb and flow near it, but never encroach on it, as though repelled by some invisible force. Indy shakes his head and talks to himself. INDY Why snakes? Why did it have to be snakes? Anything else. After a moment of this, he stops. He gathers his energy and resolve and gets back to the task. SALLAH Asps. Very dangerous. Where Indy's torch had landed is a circle of snake-free floor. The snakes hate the flame; they stay away. INDY Lots of torches. And oil. I want a landing strip down there. INT. THE WELL OF THE SOULS Fifteen torches have been dropped to the floor of the chamber, combining to make a good-sized clear zone. Smoke begins to fill the room. Several canisters of oil have been lowered into this space. Now, a large wooden crate is lowered slowly by rope. Rope handles are attached to each end of the crate. Up at the hole, Indy gives Sallah a reassuring pat, takes a breath, and swings carefully onto a rope hanging from the hole. Despite his care, he swings a bit and his feet hit the stone pillar which is so near the entry. Surprisingly, the pillar actually moves a bit, showering a light rain of crumbled stone to the floor below. Indy lands on the floor of the Well. He looks at the altar over a sea of undulating death. He picks up an oil canister and splashes two parallel lines of oil and lights them. A path six feet wide begins to open to the altar. Behind Indy, Sallah comes quickly down the rope. We begin to INTERCUT all the action in the Well from here on with insert shots of the snakes outside the flames. Snakes and snakes. We see: snakes piled and entwined six inches deep; mother snakes laying snake eggs; snake eggs hatching little snakes; snakes cannibalizing other snakes. INT. MARION'S TENT Belloq has been talking to the still-bound Marion. He has removed her gag. He is impatient, angry, uncomfortable. Caught between two forces. BELLOQ Believe me, you made a mistake. If you would just give me something to placate them. Some bit of information. MARION I swear to you, I know nothing more. I have no loyalty to Jones. He's brought me only trouble. He wants to believe her. BELLOQ I cannot control them. Marion's frightened look shifts suddenly to the entrance of the tent. There are new arrivals there - Shliemann, Gobler and Belzig. Belzig carries a black leather case. He steps forward and smiles at Marion. BELZIG We meet again, Fraulein. EXT. INDY'S DIG - JUST BEFORE DAWN The sky is just beginning to lighten over the dunes to the east, making dangerously obvious the thin column of smoke rising from the entrance to the Well. Omar and his men are peering through the smoke down into the Well. INT. THE WELL OF THE SOULS Indy and Sallah are on the altar. Pushing together with all their strength, the heavy stone top of the protective chest begins to slide away. Indy and Sallah exchange slightly wary but very excited looks, then continue to push. As the Ark begins to be exposed, the air seems to almost vibrate, to become electrostatically charged. We hear what sounds like a low HUM. The sea of snakes around the altar draws back further from this presence. As the top of the stone chest is pushed completely off and slams down beside it, we see THE LOST ARK OF THE COVENANT. It is awesomely beautiful, breathtaking. 4 feet long, 2.5 feet wide and 2.5 feet high. It's height, however, is increased by the two sculptured gold angels mounted facing each other on the top. Though the body of the Ark is acacia wood, it has been overlaid with gold. An elaborate gold crown surrounds the top edge and gold carrying rings are attached to each corner. Sallah is mesmerized by the sight. His hand starts to reach out and touch one of the angels, but Indy grabs it. INDY Don't touch it! Never touch it! The wooden crate stands open next to the stone chest. Now Indy extracts the wooden poles from its rings and begins fitting them through the rings in the Ark. This takes some maneuvering by the two men, but soon they are able to lift the Ark clear of the stone chest and into the wooden crate. They extract the poles, fasten the top of the crate and stick the poles through the rings of the wooden crate. They start back toward the space under the hole. The fire strips have begun to dwindle, as have some of the torches. The snakes move slowly in toward the clear spaces. Indy and Sallah eye them nervously as they hurry along with their heavy load. Under the hole, they hurriedly attach ropes to the wooden crate and it is pulled up. Indy's concentration is on the tide of snakes. INDY Hurry up! Why did it have to be snakes? Sallah takes the next rope and climbs quickly out of the Well. Indy has picked up a torch and now throws it at a pool of snakes who are too close for his comfort. He turns and takes hold of the exit rope. He gives it a first tug and it falls down into the Well, landing partly beyond the ring of fire where is instantly disappears in a tangle of angry, hissing asps. Indy looks up at the hole. INDY What the - Smiling down at him from the perimeter of the entry are Belloq, Shliemann and Gobler. BELLOQ Why, Dr. Jones, whatever are you doing in such a nasty place? Belloq and the Germans laugh. INDY Why don't you fellows come down here? I'll show you. BELLOQ No thank you, my friend. (he glances around him) I think we are all very comfortable up here. EXT. INDY'S DIG - DAWN Sunlight is flooding this tableau: Sallah, Omar and his men are being held at bay by ten armed Nazis. The wooden crate sits safely nearby. Belzig and another Nazi have the gagged Marion held in their rough grasp. BELLOQ (down to Indy) After all these years, it is most considerate of you to aid me in this way. As Belloq speaks, Shliemann exchanges a look with Belzig. Belzig smiles and takes the gag from Marion's mouth. INT. WELLS OF THE SOULS Shliemann smiles down at Indy. SHLIEMANN I'm afraid we must be going now, Dr. Jones. Our prize is awaited in Berlin. But I do not wish to leave you down in that awful place... (he give a sign) ...all alone. Belzig and the Nazi move Marion to the hole and, to Belloq's surprise, push her in. Marion falls thirty feet screaming. Indy drops his torch, braces, and catches her! Her weight knocks him to the ground, almost into the snakes. She looks around at the snakes, clinging to him more desperately as he struggles to his feet trying to unload her. MARION Don't put me down! Up at the hole, there's plenty of dissension. BELLOQ The girl was mine! SHLIEMANN She is of no use to us. Only our mission for the Fuhrer matters. Shliemann glances meaningfully around at the other Nazis. SHLIEMANN I wonder sometimes, Monsieur, if you have that clearly in mind. Belloq feels how much he is the outsider, his own vulnerability. He backs down with the wisdom of survival. He turns to look down at Indy and Marion. His manner is gallant. BELLOQ Goodbye, mademoiselle. (a pause, then with respect) Indiana Jones... adieu! Belloq and the others step back from the hole and unseen Nazis slam the heavy stone door into place. Marion screams. Her scream is accompanied by - A huge WHOOSH! as air is sucked out and the chamber is sealed. Half of the torches still burning go out with the sound. The remaining torches continue to extinguish at punctuating intervals throughout the following action and the snakes immediately flood into the newly-darkened spaces. Indy puts Marion down and snatches up two burning torches. He hands one to Marion. INDY Don't panic. There's plenty of time for that later. Wave that at anything that slithers. Indy holds his torch out like a lantern and begins a slow O- turn, his eyes peering into the gloom, examining every inch of wall and ceiling. MARION What are you doing? INDY Just watch the floor. Reminded of the encroaching snakes, Marion waves her torch at the nearest edge of their circle. She looks faint. Indy continues his slow turn. MARION Whatever you're doing, do it faster. INDY (he spots something) There! His head whips around, looking at the pillars around the room. He sees what he wants. He grabs one of the oil canisters, looks back to the spot on the wall he's chosen and splashes oil on the floor in that direction, then lights it. A path opens toward that wall. INDY Come on! Marion is frozen in her spot. Indy drags her after him. He splashes oil the rest of the way to the wall. It lights and Indy pulls Marion over to the wall. He pours the remaining oil in a circle around them, creating a safe zone there. INDY Stay here! MARION (grabbing him) Where are you going? INDY I'll be back in a minute. We're going through this wall. Marion looks at the wall, which looks like all the rest to her. She thinks he's crazy. INDY Just keep your eyes open and get ready to run. No matter what happens to me. MARION (panicked) What do you mean? Too late. Indy runs back through the path of flames to the center of the room. Snakes strike as his flying heels. Indy reaches the base of the pillar which he touched briefly on his original descent. He uses his torch to clear away the scattered snakes climbing on it, then pulls out his whip. He draws it back, then wraps is solidly around the pillar 15 feet up. With the torch in his mouth, he begins climbing the pillar. It moves ominously under his weight. The last two torches still burning on the floor go out. Now the only light in the chamber is provided by the torches held by Indy and Marion and the dwindling oil flames. Snakes move in and surround the base of Indy's pillar. The path between Marion and the center of the room is overrun. The circle of flame around Marion is dying down. She looks beyond it with terror-widened eyes, then up through the increasing smoke at the distant Indy. Near the top of the pillar, Indy's hands strain along his taut whip, which he has moves higher. A snake slithers into view there, inches from Indy's straining face. Indy turns his head so the torch in his mouth can burn it. The snake falls from the pillar. Indy's torch is dwindling. Indy works his body around so that he is on the side of the pillar away from Marion. The pillar moves, showering dust. Indy looks at the chamber wall five feet away, takes a breath and swings his legs up against it. He is now braced between pillar and wall. MARION (O.S.) (screaming) Where are you?! Snakes are moving in force up the pillar toward Indy's dwindling torch. Indy grasps the pillar for dear life, grimaces with exertion and pushes against the wall with all he's got. The pillar begins to break loose of the ceiling, then stops. Indy's eyes are on the torch. It is just a spot of flame now. Snakes are sliding up toward his hands. Indy again pushes against the wall and the torch falls out of his mouth. The pillar goes! In the dim light, we see it fall like a tree directly at Marion. Indy rides it down. The top hits the wall three feet from a cringing Marion and smashes through to a black chamber beyond. Indy flies off into the darkness. Gone. Marion clutches her torch at the black hole. MARION Indy! Where are you?! Please Lord! There is a moment that seems an eternity, then Indy appears like an apparition out of the void. INDY Come on! He grabs her and helps her over the remains of the wall into - INT. THE CATACOMBS The winding string of connected chambers is revealed to them only a few feet at a time as their torch lights the way. MARION The snakes... are they here? INDY I guess not. I think I'd be dead. MARION Do you know where you're going? INDY Absolutely. MARION Thank god. Where? INDY Out. They round a corner and flush a covey of bats. Marion screams. INDY Don't do that. It scares me. Marion gives him a look. They round a corner and begin a walk through a maze of chambers that present for their inspection: moldering mummies and stacked sarcophagi; a room decorated with a thousand human skulls; a wall crawling with huge scarabaeid beetles. Marion is quite naturally a nervous wreck; she jumps when Indy grabs her suddenly and points. INDY Look! WHAT THEY SEE There, coming through the crack in the corner of the next chamber, is white blessed sunlight. EXT. THE TANIS DIGS - NEAR AIRSTRIP - DAY Indy and Marion peek out into the light from the shadows of an abandoned excavation. Before them is the improvised airstrip serving the digs: a crude runway, a tent supply depot, two fuel tank trucks. Down by the fuel trucks a German Mechanic is looking skyward. Now Indy and Marion look there too, drawn by the roaring sound of - A Flying Wing, which is circling over the digs in preparation to landing. Now a new figure approaches the German Mechanic. It is Gobler; he yells to the mechanic, indicating the plane. GOBLER Get is gassed immediately! It has an important cargo to take out! In the distance, the Flying Wing lands and rolls toward the men. Gobler spins and heads back toward the main camp, which is hidden from view by a rise. Indy and Marion watch him go. INDY When the Ark gets loaded, we're already going to be on that plane. The Flying Wing rolls up into the space near the fuel trucks. The German Mechanic puts blue blocks in front of the tires as the engines continue to roar. Indy and Marion run in a crouch to a hiding spot closer to the plane, near the supply tent. Suddenly, a Second German Mechanic appears behind them. He is as surprised as they are, but recovers quickly and swings a big monkey wrench at Indy. Indy grabs the swinging arm and the two men tumble out into the open, wrestling. Marion remains hidden, moving fast among the crates. The first German Mechanic, who is just pulling the fuel hose from the tank truck to the plane, sees the combatants and runs to help his countryman. He is almost upon them when Indy puts the Second German away with a devastating left - right - left combination. He turns to find the first German Mechanic flying at him. The roll toward the rear of the Flying Wing and its lethally spinning reversed propellers. In the cockpit of the Flying Wing, the Pilot has been fiddling with his gauges just prior to shutting off his engines. Now he notices the fight going on outside. The fistfight between Indy and the German Mechanic has taken on a new stomach-tightening dimension. The men are fighting and flailing in and out between the spinning props at the back of the plane's wings. Each man comes within inches of becoming instant mincemeat. The Pilot slides away the top of his cockpit and stands up. He pulls a Luger from his side and points it, waiting for a clear shot at Indy. The German Mechanic kicks Indy away from him and the Pilot aims his pistol. Suddenly, Marion appears behind the Pilot, standing on the opposite wing, and bashes him over the head with one of the blue blocks that was holding the tires. The Pilot drops down into the cockpit, his body falling on the throttle. The engines roar louder, revving up. The plane begins to roll, rotating around its one still- blocked set of tires. Marion grabs onto the cockpit to keep from slipping into the props. She bends into the cockpit, trying to pull the Pilot's body off the throttle. No luck. She grimaces and climbs inside. Her shoulder bumps the top of the cockpit; it slides tightly shut above her. Under the moving wing, Indy delivers a knockout rightcross to the German Mechanic which sends him staggering back toward a roaring propeller. Indy's grimace registers the man's demise and a fine mist of blood wafts toward him. Indy spins toward the sound of crumpling metal and sees - The other prop of the Flying Wing slice into a tank truck. The airplane fuel inside floods out onto the pavement, surrounding the plane. Indy backpedals away from the plane, his eyes searching the scene for Marion. Suddenly, he is shocked to see her in the cockpit. He runs toward her, skidding through the gasoline. INDY Get out! Get out! Marion is struggling with the top of the cockpit. She can't budge it. She's trapped. EXT. THE COMMAND TENT - DAY Three Armed Nazis stand guard around the wooden crate containing the Ark. It is sitting near the flopped-open entrance to the Command Tent and there is furious activity going on here. Belloq, Shliemann, Gobler, Belzig and assorted Aides are packing up all the papers and personal items in preparation for a hasty departure. A large crowd of Arab Diggers is milling about among the tents. They all want to get a look at the Ark. Sallah is among them. All at once, there is a earthshaking explosion. Al eyes turn toward the rise that hides the airstrip. A huge fireball floats into view over there. Everyone starts running toward it. Shliemann yells at Belzig and the Armed Nazis. SHLIEMANN Stay with the Ark! EXT. THE RISE ABOVE AIRSTRIP - DAY Almost all the Arabs and Germans in the digs have congregated here and are staring at the burning remains of the Flying Wing. Belloq and Shliemann arrive just as the second fuel truck blows up. The concussion knocks many of the observers flat. Belloq, Shliemann and Gobler watch the scene in alarm. SHLIEMANN Sabotage! BELLOQ We must get the Ark away from this place immediately! SHLIEMANN (to Gobler) Have it put on the truck. We'll fly out of Cairo. Gobler snaps his heels, turns to go. SHLIEMANN And Gobler - (Gobler stops) I want plenty of protection. Gobler nods and runs off. Shliemann heads back toward camp. Belloq hesitates a long moment, studying the burning wreckage with an odd, suspicious look. Finally, he turns and leaves, passing a nearby stack of barrels. When he has passed, Sallah appears from among the barrels. He searches the crowd for his people and starts a broken field run along some tents to avoid a group of Germans and is running flat-out when someone sticks out a leg and sends him flipping. Sallah, dust all over his face, looks angrily toward the concealed culprit. At once, a flashing white grin splits his darkened face. Indy and Marion, splotched with soot and oil, are hiding in the flap of a tent. Sallah runs into their arms and the three embrace warmly. When they break - SALLAH Holy smoke, my friends! I am so pleased you are not dead. MARION Us too. SALLAH (suddenly remembering) The Ark! They're taking it on a truck to Cairo. INDY Where is it? Sallah gestures to follow and all three run off stealthily through the mostly deserted camp. EXT. AMONG THE TENTS - DAY Sallah, Indy and Marion run into a hiding spot behind some water barrels near the Command Tent. They peek out at this activity - In the big space near the Command Tent is parked an open German staff car; inside is a

possession

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

within a fraction of an inch of the tiny hole in its sun. The edge of the sunlight moving across the miniature city is still a good two feet beyond the spot Belloq has settled on. And now that line of light is broken by the shadow of an ornate sun at the top of the staff. Indy's face reflects his concentration. And then his immense pleasure. He sees what he came for. Out of the miniature city, one small building is being lit by a tiny beam of sunlight in the center of the shadow of the metal sun. And by some trick of ancient artistry, this one building responds to the sunlight like none of the others. The golden light permeates it: it seems to glow. The building is in a direct line with Belloq's - all the Frenchman's other calculations were right - but it is a foot and a half beyond it. EXT. IN THE CAMP - DAY Sallah, sweating profusely, has finished serving the line of Breakfasting Germans and now heads back to replace the kettle and get away. HUNGRY GERMAN Water. Bring us water. INT. MAP ROOM Indy is on his knees at the miniature city, a special tape measure in his hand. Indy has the tape strung from Belloq's mistaken spot to his own correct spot. He gets his reading, leaps up and crosses to the erect staff. He pulls the headpiece off the staff and hides it in his robes. He quickly breaks the wooden staff in two and throws the pieces behind a pile of debris. Then he moves quickly to beneath the skylight. INDY (stage whisper) Sallah. (he waits, then louder) Sallah! More waiting. Nothing. Indy looks around for some alternative means of escape. The room doesn't offer any. He looks up at the skylight again. INDY (loudest) Sallah! A long pause. Then something comes down. A makeshift rope. Really just a bunch of clothing tied together - tunics, robes, pants. But what we see first and most prominently, the first section of Indy's escape rope, is a bright Nazi flag. Indy beams and climbs. EXT. ABOVE THE MAP ROOM - DAY Indy sticks his head out the skylight, sees it clear and flops his body out. Sallah, crouching behind the oil drum, immediately starts pulling in the makeshift rope. Sallah stuffs the rope in the oil drum and the two men begin waking toward some tents. HUNGRY GERMAN (O.S.) Hey, you! More water over here! Sallah glances at Indy, Then hurries back in that direction. The Hungry German focuses on Indy. HUNGRY GERMAN Why aren't you at the digs? Come here! Indy bows in wild subservience and hurries off in the opposite direction. HUNGRY GERMAN (yelling after him, irritated) No, dummkopf, I said come! EXT. BETWEEN TWO TENTS - DAY Indy hustles between the tents. Up ahead, two German Officers stop to talk, blocking his exit. He moves along the side of one of the tents until he finds an opening and slips inside. INT. THE TENT Indy finds himself in a tent set up for rather comfortable living. He has just started to cross it when he hears a loud, excited grunting. He turns toward the sound. In the corner, tied to a chair and gagged is Marion. Indy rushes to her, snatches the gag from her mouth and embraces her. They kiss, deep and long. INDY I though you were dead. MARION They were throwing me around like a rag doll. INDY They must have switched baskets. Thank god for that! Bless those bastards. Have they hurt you? MARION No. Not since I got here. They just asked about you - what you knew. The Frenchman's got the hot's for me. I've been playing that along. Oh, Indy, get me out of here. Indy pulls out a knife and then stops suddenly, thinking. MARION What's wrong? INDY (putting the knife away) I have to leave you here for a little while. I know where the Ark is. If I take you out of here they'll start combing the place for us. MARION (louder) Cut me loose! INDY Keep your voice down. MARION (screaming) I said get me out of - Indy pops the gag back in her mouth. Her eyes widen in fury and she grunts obscenities at him. INDY Look, you don't know how glad I am to see you. And I don't like doing this. But the whole thing will be shot if you don't just sit here quietly. They haven't hurt you in the last twenty-four hours, they aren't going to start now. I'll be back to get you in no time. He kisses her forehead, jumps up and hurries out of the tent. EXT. SAND DUNE OUTSIDE DIGS - DAY With the digs behind them, Indy and Sallah run up to the ridge of the dune and over the top. At the bottom of the far side, Omar's truck is parked. Omar and his men are waiting. EXT. DIFFERENT DUNE - DAY This new spot gives Indy a higher, better view of the whole scene. Indy is using a surveyor's instrument to take a reading - WHAT HE SEES Looking through the instrument, Indy gets a line from the map room through the site where the Nazis are digging in the dunes to a spot several dunes over. We focus on that virgin spot of well-hidden sand as - INDY There! EXT. INDY'S DIG - DAY Omar's truck is parked at the spot just viewed from afar. Dunes rise on either side. One of Omar's men has been posted as a lookout up on a ridge. Everybody else - Indy, Sallah, Omar, and his men - have begun digging for the Wells of the Souls. DISSOLVE TO: SAME SCENE - NIGHT They continue to dig furiously, all of them drenched in sweat. The hole has grown but this is slow, back-breaking work. INT. COMMAND TENT - TANIS DIGS - NIGHT Belloq, SHLIEMANN the ranking Nazi, and Shliemann's Aide, GOBLER, come into the tent, which is full of charts and maps, drawings of the Ark, radio equipment, liquor and food. The men have been out digging for the Well all day. They are tired, discouraged, testy. In all matters, Gobler shows his alliance with Shliemann against Belloq with small looks and body language. The Frenchman has disappointed them and he is feeling the isolation of a scapegoat. Belloq gets himself a drink as Shliemann towels off his face. BELLOQ I cautioned you about being premature with that communiqu to Berlin. Archeology is not an exact science. If does not adhere to time schedules. SHLIEMANN The Fuhrer is not a patient man. He demands constant reports and he expects progress. You led me to believe - BELLOQ Nothing. I have made no promises. I said only that it looked very favorable. Perhaps the Ark will still be found in an adjoining chamber. Based on the information in our possession, my calculations were correct. Perhaps some bit of evidence still eludes us. Perhaps GOBLER Perhaps the girl can help us. Belloq shoots him an angry look. SHLIEMANN My feeling exactly. She was in possession of the original piece for years. She may know much. (really evil) If properly motivated... BELLOQ I tell you, she knows nothing useful. SHLIEMANN I'm surprised to find you squeamish. That is not your reputation. But it needn't concern you. I have the perfect man for this kind of work. Shliemann signals Gobler, who steps outside the tent a moment, calls someone and then reappears. Belloq looks warily at the entrance. After a moment Belzig enters, reeking villainy. When his eyes find Shliemann, his superior, he snaps a crisp "Heil, Hitler!" at him, holding his palm rigid a long time, exposing a burned scar in the prefect shape of the sun medallion. EXT. INDY'S DIG - NIGHT In the eerie conjunction of moonlight and torchlight, Indy and the other men step back in awe of their discovery: there, flush with the bottom of their pit, is a heavy stone entry door to an underground chamber. Special prying tools are produced. With two men assigned to each of the two long tools, they work in unison to open the vault. They open it a foot and the other men rush in to flop the heavy door completely open. Down inside, only blackness. The men quickly prostrate themselves around the edge of the entry to look inside. Indy and Sallah each take a torch and hold them down the hole. WHAT THEY SEE The Well of the Souls is a spooky chamber thirty feet deep. The walls are covered with hieroglyphics and carvings. The roof is supported intermittently by stone pillars, the closest of which hits the roof very near the entry hole. The Well is quite large; as Indy and Sallah wave their torches, more and more of the room is revealed. Now the far end of the chamber comes into view. There is a stone altar down there and on this elaborated carved platform is a stone chest, big enough to enclose the Lost Ark and protect it from the ravages of time. This altar appears to be the only place on the floor of the Well that is not covered by a strange, dark carpet of some kind. INDY The Ark must be in that stone case. What's that gray stuff all over the floor - He breaks off realizing exactly what that carpet is. He blanches. Indiana Jones blanches. Indy drops his torch to the floor of the Well. This is answered by the most horrific HISSING imaginable. WHAT HE SEES That think dark carpet is moving. It's alive. It's thousands and thousands of deadly poisonous snakes - Egyptian asps. And the only thing that seems capable of avoiding this venomous groundcover is the altar. The snakes ebb and flow near it, but never encroach on it, as though repelled by some invisible force. Indy shakes his head and talks to himself. INDY Why snakes? Why did it have to be snakes? Anything else. After a moment of this, he stops. He gathers his energy and resolve and gets back to the task. SALLAH Asps. Very dangerous. Where Indy's torch had landed is a circle of snake-free floor. The snakes hate the flame; they stay away. INDY Lots of torches. And oil. I want a landing strip down there. INT. THE WELL OF THE SOULS Fifteen torches have been dropped to the floor of the chamber, combining to make a good-sized clear zone. Smoke begins to fill the room. Several canisters of oil have been lowered into this space. Now, a large wooden crate is lowered slowly by rope. Rope handles are attached to each end of the crate. Up at the hole, Indy gives Sallah a reassuring pat, takes a breath, and swings carefully onto a rope hanging from the hole. Despite his care, he swings a bit and his feet hit the stone pillar which is so near the entry. Surprisingly, the pillar actually moves a bit, showering a light rain of crumbled stone to the floor below. Indy lands on the floor of the Well. He looks at the altar over a sea of undulating death. He picks up an oil canister and splashes two parallel lines of oil and lights them. A path six feet wide begins to open to the altar. Behind Indy, Sallah comes quickly down the rope. We begin to INTERCUT all the action in the Well from here on with insert shots of the snakes outside the flames. Snakes and snakes. We see: snakes piled and entwined six inches deep; mother snakes laying snake eggs; snake eggs hatching little snakes; snakes cannibalizing other snakes. INT. MARION'S TENT Belloq has been talking to the still-bound Marion. He has removed her gag. He is impatient, angry, uncomfortable. Caught between two forces. BELLOQ Believe me, you made a mistake. If you would just give me something to placate them. Some bit of information. MARION I swear to you, I know nothing more. I have no loyalty to Jones. He's brought me only trouble. He wants to believe her. BELLOQ I cannot control them. Marion's frightened look shifts suddenly to the entrance of the tent. There are new arrivals there - Shliemann, Gobler and Belzig. Belzig carries a black leather case. He steps forward and smiles at Marion. BELZIG We meet again, Fraulein. EXT. INDY'S DIG - JUST BEFORE DAWN The sky is just beginning to lighten over the dunes to the east, making dangerously obvious the thin column of smoke rising from the entrance to the Well. Omar and his men are peering through the smoke down into the Well. INT. THE WELL OF THE SOULS Indy and Sallah are on the altar. Pushing together with all their strength, the heavy stone top of the protective chest begins to slide away. Indy and Sallah exchange slightly wary but very excited looks, then continue to push. As the Ark begins to be exposed, the air seems to almost vibrate, to become electrostatically charged. We hear what sounds like a low HUM. The sea of snakes around the altar draws back further from this presence. As the top of the stone chest is pushed completely off and slams down beside it, we see THE LOST ARK OF THE COVENANT. It is awesomely beautiful, breathtaking. 4 feet long, 2.5 feet wide and 2.5 feet high. It's height, however, is increased by the two sculptured gold angels mounted facing each other on the top. Though the body of the Ark is acacia wood, it has been overlaid with gold. An elaborate gold crown surrounds the top edge and gold carrying rings are attached to each corner. Sallah is mesmerized by the sight. His hand starts to reach out and touch one of the angels, but Indy grabs it. INDY Don't touch it! Never touch it! The wooden crate stands open next to the stone chest. Now Indy extracts the wooden poles from its rings and begins fitting them through the rings in the Ark. This takes some maneuvering by the two men, but soon they are able to lift the Ark clear of the stone chest and into the wooden crate. They extract the poles, fasten the top of the crate and stick the poles through the rings of the wooden crate. They start back toward the space under the hole. The fire strips have begun to dwindle, as have some of the torches. The snakes move slowly in toward the clear spaces. Indy and Sallah eye them nervously as they hurry along with their heavy load. Under the hole, they hurriedly attach ropes to the wooden crate and it is pulled up. Indy's concentration is on the tide of snakes. INDY Hurry up! Why did it have to be snakes? Sallah takes the next rope and climbs quickly out of the Well. Indy has picked up a torch and now throws it at a pool of snakes who are too close for his comfort. He turns and takes hold of the exit rope. He gives it a first tug and it falls down into the Well, landing partly beyond the ring of fire where is instantly disappears in a tangle of angry, hissing asps. Indy looks up at the hole. INDY What the - Smiling down at him from the perimeter of the entry are Belloq, Shliemann and Gobler. BELLOQ Why, Dr. Jones, whatever are you doing in such a nasty place? Belloq and the Germans laugh. INDY Why don't you fellows come down here? I'll show you. BELLOQ No thank you, my friend. (he glances around him) I think we are all very comfortable up here. EXT. INDY'S DIG - DAWN Sunlight is flooding this tableau: Sallah, Omar and his men are being held at bay by ten armed Nazis. The wooden crate sits safely nearby. Belzig and another Nazi have the gagged Marion held in their rough grasp. BELLOQ (down to Indy) After all these years, it is most considerate of you to aid me in this way. As Belloq speaks, Shliemann exchanges a look with Belzig. Belzig smiles and takes the gag from Marion's mouth. INT. WELLS OF THE SOULS Shliemann smiles down at Indy. SHLIEMANN I'm afraid we must be going now, Dr. Jones. Our prize is awaited in Berlin. But I do not wish to leave you down in that awful place... (he give a sign) ...all alone. Belzig and the Nazi move Marion to the hole and, to Belloq's surprise, push her in. Marion falls thirty feet screaming. Indy drops his torch, braces, and catches her! Her weight knocks him to the ground, almost into the snakes. She looks around at the snakes, clinging to him more desperately as he struggles to his feet trying to unload her. MARION Don't put me down! Up at the hole, there's plenty of dissension. BELLOQ The girl was mine! SHLIEMANN She is of no use to us. Only our mission for the Fuhrer matters. Shliemann glances meaningfully around at the other Nazis. SHLIEMANN I wonder sometimes, Monsieur, if you have that clearly in mind. Belloq feels how much he is the outsider, his own vulnerability. He backs down with the wisdom of survival. He turns to look down at Indy and Marion. His manner is gallant. BELLOQ Goodbye, mademoiselle. (a pause, then with respect) Indiana Jones... adieu! Belloq and the others step back from the hole and unseen Nazis slam the heavy stone door into place. Marion screams. Her scream is accompanied by - A huge WHOOSH! as air is sucked out and the chamber is sealed. Half of the torches still burning go out with the sound. The remaining torches continue to extinguish at punctuating intervals throughout the following action and the snakes immediately flood into the newly-darkened spaces. Indy puts Marion down and snatches up two burning torches. He hands one to Marion. INDY Don't panic. There's plenty of time for that later. Wave that at anything that slithers. Indy holds his torch out like a lantern and begins a slow O- turn, his eyes peering into the gloom, examining every inch of wall and ceiling. MARION What are you doing? INDY Just watch the floor. Reminded of the encroaching snakes, Marion waves her torch at the nearest edge of their circle. She looks faint. Indy continues his slow turn. MARION Whatever you're doing, do it faster. INDY (he spots something) There! His head whips around, looking at the pillars around the room. He sees what he wants. He grabs one of the oil canisters, looks back to the spot on the wall he's chosen and splashes oil on the floor in that direction, then lights it. A path opens toward that wall. INDY Come on! Marion is frozen in her spot. Indy drags her after him. He splashes oil the rest of the way to the wall. It lights and Indy pulls Marion over to the wall. He pours the remaining oil in a circle around them, creating a safe zone there. INDY Stay here! MARION (grabbing him) Where are you going? INDY I'll be back in a minute. We're going through this wall. Marion looks at the wall, which looks like all the rest to her. She thinks he's crazy. INDY Just keep your eyes open and get ready to run. No matter what happens to me. MARION (panicked) What do you mean? Too late. Indy runs back through the path of flames to the center of the room. Snakes strike as his flying heels. Indy reaches the base of the pillar which he touched briefly on his original descent. He uses his torch to clear away the scattered snakes climbing on it, then pulls out his whip. He draws it back, then wraps is solidly around the pillar 15 feet up. With the torch in his mouth, he begins climbing the pillar. It moves ominously under his weight. The last two torches still burning on the floor go out. Now the only light in the chamber is provided by the torches held by Indy and Marion and the dwindling oil flames. Snakes move in and surround the base of Indy's pillar. The path between Marion and the center of the room is overrun. The circle of flame around Marion is dying down. She looks beyond it with terror-widened eyes, then up through the increasing smoke at the distant Indy. Near the top of the pillar, Indy's hands strain along his taut whip, which he has moves higher. A snake slithers into view there, inches from Indy's straining face. Indy turns his head so the torch in his mouth can burn it. The snake falls from the pillar. Indy's torch is dwindling. Indy works his body around so that he is on the side of the pillar away from Marion. The pillar moves, showering dust. Indy looks at the chamber wall five feet away, takes a breath and swings his legs up against it. He is now braced between pillar and wall. MARION (O.S.) (screaming) Where are you?! Snakes are moving in force up the pillar toward Indy's dwindling torch. Indy grasps the pillar for dear life, grimaces with exertion and pushes against the wall with all he's got. The pillar begins to break loose of the ceiling, then stops. Indy's eyes are on the torch. It is just a spot of flame now. Snakes are sliding up toward his hands. Indy again pushes against the wall and the torch falls out of his mouth. The pillar goes! In the dim light, we see it fall like a tree directly at Marion. Indy rides it down. The top hits the wall three feet from a cringing Marion and smashes through to a black chamber beyond. Indy flies off into the darkness. Gone. Marion clutches her torch at the black hole. MARION Indy! Where are you?! Please Lord! There is a moment that seems an eternity, then Indy appears like an apparition out of the void. INDY Come on! He grabs her and helps her over the remains of the wall into - INT. THE CATACOMBS The winding string of connected chambers is revealed to them only a few feet at a time as their torch lights the way. MARION The snakes... are they here? INDY I guess not. I think I'd be dead. MARION Do you know where you're going? INDY Absolutely. MARION Thank god. Where? INDY Out. They round a corner and flush a covey of bats. Marion screams. INDY Don't do that. It scares me. Marion gives him a look. They round a corner and begin a walk through a maze of chambers that present for their inspection: moldering mummies and stacked sarcophagi; a room decorated with a thousand human skulls; a wall crawling with huge scarabaeid beetles. Marion is quite naturally a nervous wreck; she jumps when Indy grabs her suddenly and points. INDY Look! WHAT THEY SEE There, coming through the crack in the corner of the next chamber, is white blessed sunlight. EXT. THE TANIS DIGS - NEAR AIRSTRIP - DAY Indy and Marion peek out into the light from the shadows of an abandoned excavation. Before them is the improvised airstrip serving the digs: a crude runway, a tent supply depot, two fuel tank trucks. Down by the fuel trucks a German Mechanic is looking skyward. Now Indy and Marion look there too, drawn by the roaring sound of - A Flying Wing, which is circling over the digs in preparation to landing. Now a new figure approaches the German Mechanic. It is Gobler; he yells to the mechanic, indicating the plane. GOBLER Get is gassed immediately! It has an important cargo to take out! In the distance, the Flying Wing lands and rolls toward the men. Gobler spins and heads back toward the main camp, which is hidden from view by a rise. Indy and Marion watch him go. INDY When the Ark gets loaded, we're already going to be on that plane. The Flying Wing rolls up into the space near the fuel trucks. The German Mechanic puts blue blocks in front of the tires as the engines continue to roar. Indy and Marion run in a crouch to a hiding spot closer to the plane, near the supply tent. Suddenly, a Second German Mechanic appears behind them. He is as surprised as they are, but recovers quickly and swings a big monkey wrench at Indy. Indy grabs the swinging arm and the two men tumble out into the open, wrestling. Marion remains hidden, moving fast among the crates. The first German Mechanic, who is just pulling the fuel hose from the tank truck to the plane, sees the combatants and runs to help his countryman. He is almost upon them when Indy puts the Second German away with a devastating left - right - left combination. He turns to find the first German Mechanic flying at him. The roll toward the rear of the Flying Wing and its lethally spinning reversed propellers. In the cockpit of the Flying Wing, the Pilot has been fiddling with his gauges just prior to shutting off his engines. Now he notices the fight going on outside. The fistfight between Indy and the German Mechanic has taken on a new stomach-tightening dimension. The men are fighting and flailing in and out between the spinning props at the back of the plane's wings. Each man comes within inches of becoming instant mincemeat. The Pilot slides away the top of his cockpit and stands up. He pulls a Luger from his side and points it, waiting for a clear shot at Indy. The German Mechanic kicks Indy away from him and the Pilot aims his pistol. Suddenly, Marion appears behind the Pilot, standing on the opposite wing, and bashes him over the head with one of the blue blocks that was holding the tires. The Pilot drops down into the cockpit, his body falling on the throttle. The engines roar louder, revving up. The plane begins to roll, rotating around its one still- blocked set of tires. Marion grabs onto the cockpit to keep from slipping into the props. She bends into the cockpit, trying to pull the Pilot's body off the throttle. No luck. She grimaces and climbs inside. Her shoulder bumps the top of the cockpit; it slides tightly shut above her. Under the moving wing, Indy delivers a knockout rightcross to the German Mechanic which sends him staggering back toward a roaring propeller. Indy's grimace registers the man's demise and a fine mist of blood wafts toward him. Indy spins toward the sound of crumpling metal and sees - The other prop of the Flying Wing slice into a tank truck. The airplane fuel inside floods out onto the pavement, surrounding the plane. Indy backpedals away from the plane, his eyes searching the scene for Marion. Suddenly, he is shocked to see her in the cockpit. He runs toward her, skidding through the gasoline. INDY Get out! Get out! Marion is struggling with the top of the cockpit. She can't budge it. She's trapped. EXT. THE COMMAND TENT - DAY Three Armed Nazis stand guard around the wooden crate containing the Ark. It is sitting near the flopped-open entrance to the Command Tent and there is furious activity going on here. Belloq, Shliemann, Gobler, Belzig and assorted Aides are packing up all the papers and personal items in preparation for a hasty departure. A large crowd of Arab Diggers is milling about among the tents. They all want to get a look at the Ark. Sallah is among them. All at once, there is a earthshaking explosion. Al eyes turn toward the rise that hides the airstrip. A huge fireball floats into view over there. Everyone starts running toward it. Shliemann yells at Belzig and the Armed Nazis. SHLIEMANN Stay with the Ark! EXT. THE RISE ABOVE AIRSTRIP - DAY Almost all the Arabs and Germans in the digs have congregated here and are staring at the burning remains of the Flying Wing. Belloq and Shliemann arrive just as the second fuel truck blows up. The concussion knocks many of the observers flat. Belloq, Shliemann and Gobler watch the scene in alarm. SHLIEMANN Sabotage! BELLOQ We must get the Ark away from this place immediately! SHLIEMANN (to Gobler) Have it put on the truck. We'll fly out of Cairo. Gobler snaps his heels, turns to go. SHLIEMANN And Gobler - (Gobler stops) I want plenty of protection. Gobler nods and runs off. Shliemann heads back toward camp. Belloq hesitates a long moment, studying the burning wreckage with an odd, suspicious look. Finally, he turns and leaves, passing a nearby stack of barrels. When he has passed, Sallah appears from among the barrels. He searches the crowd for his people and starts a broken field run along some tents to avoid a group of Germans and is running flat-out when someone sticks out a leg and sends him flipping. Sallah, dust all over his face, looks angrily toward the concealed culprit. At once, a flashing white grin splits his darkened face. Indy and Marion, splotched with soot and oil, are hiding in the flap of a tent. Sallah runs into their arms and the three embrace warmly. When they break - SALLAH Holy smoke, my friends! I am so pleased you are not dead. MARION Us too. SALLAH (suddenly remembering) The Ark! They're taking it on a truck to Cairo. INDY Where is it? Sallah gestures to follow and all three run off stealthily through the mostly deserted camp. EXT. AMONG THE TENTS - DAY Sallah, Indy and Marion run into a hiding spot behind some water barrels near the Command Tent. They peek out at this activity - In the big space near the Command Tent is parked an open German staff car; inside is a

for

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

within a fraction of an inch of the tiny hole in its sun. The edge of the sunlight moving across the miniature city is still a good two feet beyond the spot Belloq has settled on. And now that line of light is broken by the shadow of an ornate sun at the top of the staff. Indy's face reflects his concentration. And then his immense pleasure. He sees what he came for. Out of the miniature city, one small building is being lit by a tiny beam of sunlight in the center of the shadow of the metal sun. And by some trick of ancient artistry, this one building responds to the sunlight like none of the others. The golden light permeates it: it seems to glow. The building is in a direct line with Belloq's - all the Frenchman's other calculations were right - but it is a foot and a half beyond it. EXT. IN THE CAMP - DAY Sallah, sweating profusely, has finished serving the line of Breakfasting Germans and now heads back to replace the kettle and get away. HUNGRY GERMAN Water. Bring us water. INT. MAP ROOM Indy is on his knees at the miniature city, a special tape measure in his hand. Indy has the tape strung from Belloq's mistaken spot to his own correct spot. He gets his reading, leaps up and crosses to the erect staff. He pulls the headpiece off the staff and hides it in his robes. He quickly breaks the wooden staff in two and throws the pieces behind a pile of debris. Then he moves quickly to beneath the skylight. INDY (stage whisper) Sallah. (he waits, then louder) Sallah! More waiting. Nothing. Indy looks around for some alternative means of escape. The room doesn't offer any. He looks up at the skylight again. INDY (loudest) Sallah! A long pause. Then something comes down. A makeshift rope. Really just a bunch of clothing tied together - tunics, robes, pants. But what we see first and most prominently, the first section of Indy's escape rope, is a bright Nazi flag. Indy beams and climbs. EXT. ABOVE THE MAP ROOM - DAY Indy sticks his head out the skylight, sees it clear and flops his body out. Sallah, crouching behind the oil drum, immediately starts pulling in the makeshift rope. Sallah stuffs the rope in the oil drum and the two men begin waking toward some tents. HUNGRY GERMAN (O.S.) Hey, you! More water over here! Sallah glances at Indy, Then hurries back in that direction. The Hungry German focuses on Indy. HUNGRY GERMAN Why aren't you at the digs? Come here! Indy bows in wild subservience and hurries off in the opposite direction. HUNGRY GERMAN (yelling after him, irritated) No, dummkopf, I said come! EXT. BETWEEN TWO TENTS - DAY Indy hustles between the tents. Up ahead, two German Officers stop to talk, blocking his exit. He moves along the side of one of the tents until he finds an opening and slips inside. INT. THE TENT Indy finds himself in a tent set up for rather comfortable living. He has just started to cross it when he hears a loud, excited grunting. He turns toward the sound. In the corner, tied to a chair and gagged is Marion. Indy rushes to her, snatches the gag from her mouth and embraces her. They kiss, deep and long. INDY I though you were dead. MARION They were throwing me around like a rag doll. INDY They must have switched baskets. Thank god for that! Bless those bastards. Have they hurt you? MARION No. Not since I got here. They just asked about you - what you knew. The Frenchman's got the hot's for me. I've been playing that along. Oh, Indy, get me out of here. Indy pulls out a knife and then stops suddenly, thinking. MARION What's wrong? INDY (putting the knife away) I have to leave you here for a little while. I know where the Ark is. If I take you out of here they'll start combing the place for us. MARION (louder) Cut me loose! INDY Keep your voice down. MARION (screaming) I said get me out of - Indy pops the gag back in her mouth. Her eyes widen in fury and she grunts obscenities at him. INDY Look, you don't know how glad I am to see you. And I don't like doing this. But the whole thing will be shot if you don't just sit here quietly. They haven't hurt you in the last twenty-four hours, they aren't going to start now. I'll be back to get you in no time. He kisses her forehead, jumps up and hurries out of the tent. EXT. SAND DUNE OUTSIDE DIGS - DAY With the digs behind them, Indy and Sallah run up to the ridge of the dune and over the top. At the bottom of the far side, Omar's truck is parked. Omar and his men are waiting. EXT. DIFFERENT DUNE - DAY This new spot gives Indy a higher, better view of the whole scene. Indy is using a surveyor's instrument to take a reading - WHAT HE SEES Looking through the instrument, Indy gets a line from the map room through the site where the Nazis are digging in the dunes to a spot several dunes over. We focus on that virgin spot of well-hidden sand as - INDY There! EXT. INDY'S DIG - DAY Omar's truck is parked at the spot just viewed from afar. Dunes rise on either side. One of Omar's men has been posted as a lookout up on a ridge. Everybody else - Indy, Sallah, Omar, and his men - have begun digging for the Wells of the Souls. DISSOLVE TO: SAME SCENE - NIGHT They continue to dig furiously, all of them drenched in sweat. The hole has grown but this is slow, back-breaking work. INT. COMMAND TENT - TANIS DIGS - NIGHT Belloq, SHLIEMANN the ranking Nazi, and Shliemann's Aide, GOBLER, come into the tent, which is full of charts and maps, drawings of the Ark, radio equipment, liquor and food. The men have been out digging for the Well all day. They are tired, discouraged, testy. In all matters, Gobler shows his alliance with Shliemann against Belloq with small looks and body language. The Frenchman has disappointed them and he is feeling the isolation of a scapegoat. Belloq gets himself a drink as Shliemann towels off his face. BELLOQ I cautioned you about being premature with that communiqu to Berlin. Archeology is not an exact science. If does not adhere to time schedules. SHLIEMANN The Fuhrer is not a patient man. He demands constant reports and he expects progress. You led me to believe - BELLOQ Nothing. I have made no promises. I said only that it looked very favorable. Perhaps the Ark will still be found in an adjoining chamber. Based on the information in our possession, my calculations were correct. Perhaps some bit of evidence still eludes us. Perhaps GOBLER Perhaps the girl can help us. Belloq shoots him an angry look. SHLIEMANN My feeling exactly. She was in possession of the original piece for years. She may know much. (really evil) If properly motivated... BELLOQ I tell you, she knows nothing useful. SHLIEMANN I'm surprised to find you squeamish. That is not your reputation. But it needn't concern you. I have the perfect man for this kind of work. Shliemann signals Gobler, who steps outside the tent a moment, calls someone and then reappears. Belloq looks warily at the entrance. After a moment Belzig enters, reeking villainy. When his eyes find Shliemann, his superior, he snaps a crisp "Heil, Hitler!" at him, holding his palm rigid a long time, exposing a burned scar in the prefect shape of the sun medallion. EXT. INDY'S DIG - NIGHT In the eerie conjunction of moonlight and torchlight, Indy and the other men step back in awe of their discovery: there, flush with the bottom of their pit, is a heavy stone entry door to an underground chamber. Special prying tools are produced. With two men assigned to each of the two long tools, they work in unison to open the vault. They open it a foot and the other men rush in to flop the heavy door completely open. Down inside, only blackness. The men quickly prostrate themselves around the edge of the entry to look inside. Indy and Sallah each take a torch and hold them down the hole. WHAT THEY SEE The Well of the Souls is a spooky chamber thirty feet deep. The walls are covered with hieroglyphics and carvings. The roof is supported intermittently by stone pillars, the closest of which hits the roof very near the entry hole. The Well is quite large; as Indy and Sallah wave their torches, more and more of the room is revealed. Now the far end of the chamber comes into view. There is a stone altar down there and on this elaborated carved platform is a stone chest, big enough to enclose the Lost Ark and protect it from the ravages of time. This altar appears to be the only place on the floor of the Well that is not covered by a strange, dark carpet of some kind. INDY The Ark must be in that stone case. What's that gray stuff all over the floor - He breaks off realizing exactly what that carpet is. He blanches. Indiana Jones blanches. Indy drops his torch to the floor of the Well. This is answered by the most horrific HISSING imaginable. WHAT HE SEES That think dark carpet is moving. It's alive. It's thousands and thousands of deadly poisonous snakes - Egyptian asps. And the only thing that seems capable of avoiding this venomous groundcover is the altar. The snakes ebb and flow near it, but never encroach on it, as though repelled by some invisible force. Indy shakes his head and talks to himself. INDY Why snakes? Why did it have to be snakes? Anything else. After a moment of this, he stops. He gathers his energy and resolve and gets back to the task. SALLAH Asps. Very dangerous. Where Indy's torch had landed is a circle of snake-free floor. The snakes hate the flame; they stay away. INDY Lots of torches. And oil. I want a landing strip down there. INT. THE WELL OF THE SOULS Fifteen torches have been dropped to the floor of the chamber, combining to make a good-sized clear zone. Smoke begins to fill the room. Several canisters of oil have been lowered into this space. Now, a large wooden crate is lowered slowly by rope. Rope handles are attached to each end of the crate. Up at the hole, Indy gives Sallah a reassuring pat, takes a breath, and swings carefully onto a rope hanging from the hole. Despite his care, he swings a bit and his feet hit the stone pillar which is so near the entry. Surprisingly, the pillar actually moves a bit, showering a light rain of crumbled stone to the floor below. Indy lands on the floor of the Well. He looks at the altar over a sea of undulating death. He picks up an oil canister and splashes two parallel lines of oil and lights them. A path six feet wide begins to open to the altar. Behind Indy, Sallah comes quickly down the rope. We begin to INTERCUT all the action in the Well from here on with insert shots of the snakes outside the flames. Snakes and snakes. We see: snakes piled and entwined six inches deep; mother snakes laying snake eggs; snake eggs hatching little snakes; snakes cannibalizing other snakes. INT. MARION'S TENT Belloq has been talking to the still-bound Marion. He has removed her gag. He is impatient, angry, uncomfortable. Caught between two forces. BELLOQ Believe me, you made a mistake. If you would just give me something to placate them. Some bit of information. MARION I swear to you, I know nothing more. I have no loyalty to Jones. He's brought me only trouble. He wants to believe her. BELLOQ I cannot control them. Marion's frightened look shifts suddenly to the entrance of the tent. There are new arrivals there - Shliemann, Gobler and Belzig. Belzig carries a black leather case. He steps forward and smiles at Marion. BELZIG We meet again, Fraulein. EXT. INDY'S DIG - JUST BEFORE DAWN The sky is just beginning to lighten over the dunes to the east, making dangerously obvious the thin column of smoke rising from the entrance to the Well. Omar and his men are peering through the smoke down into the Well. INT. THE WELL OF THE SOULS Indy and Sallah are on the altar. Pushing together with all their strength, the heavy stone top of the protective chest begins to slide away. Indy and Sallah exchange slightly wary but very excited looks, then continue to push. As the Ark begins to be exposed, the air seems to almost vibrate, to become electrostatically charged. We hear what sounds like a low HUM. The sea of snakes around the altar draws back further from this presence. As the top of the stone chest is pushed completely off and slams down beside it, we see THE LOST ARK OF THE COVENANT. It is awesomely beautiful, breathtaking. 4 feet long, 2.5 feet wide and 2.5 feet high. It's height, however, is increased by the two sculptured gold angels mounted facing each other on the top. Though the body of the Ark is acacia wood, it has been overlaid with gold. An elaborate gold crown surrounds the top edge and gold carrying rings are attached to each corner. Sallah is mesmerized by the sight. His hand starts to reach out and touch one of the angels, but Indy grabs it. INDY Don't touch it! Never touch it! The wooden crate stands open next to the stone chest. Now Indy extracts the wooden poles from its rings and begins fitting them through the rings in the Ark. This takes some maneuvering by the two men, but soon they are able to lift the Ark clear of the stone chest and into the wooden crate. They extract the poles, fasten the top of the crate and stick the poles through the rings of the wooden crate. They start back toward the space under the hole. The fire strips have begun to dwindle, as have some of the torches. The snakes move slowly in toward the clear spaces. Indy and Sallah eye them nervously as they hurry along with their heavy load. Under the hole, they hurriedly attach ropes to the wooden crate and it is pulled up. Indy's concentration is on the tide of snakes. INDY Hurry up! Why did it have to be snakes? Sallah takes the next rope and climbs quickly out of the Well. Indy has picked up a torch and now throws it at a pool of snakes who are too close for his comfort. He turns and takes hold of the exit rope. He gives it a first tug and it falls down into the Well, landing partly beyond the ring of fire where is instantly disappears in a tangle of angry, hissing asps. Indy looks up at the hole. INDY What the - Smiling down at him from the perimeter of the entry are Belloq, Shliemann and Gobler. BELLOQ Why, Dr. Jones, whatever are you doing in such a nasty place? Belloq and the Germans laugh. INDY Why don't you fellows come down here? I'll show you. BELLOQ No thank you, my friend. (he glances around him) I think we are all very comfortable up here. EXT. INDY'S DIG - DAWN Sunlight is flooding this tableau: Sallah, Omar and his men are being held at bay by ten armed Nazis. The wooden crate sits safely nearby. Belzig and another Nazi have the gagged Marion held in their rough grasp. BELLOQ (down to Indy) After all these years, it is most considerate of you to aid me in this way. As Belloq speaks, Shliemann exchanges a look with Belzig. Belzig smiles and takes the gag from Marion's mouth. INT. WELLS OF THE SOULS Shliemann smiles down at Indy. SHLIEMANN I'm afraid we must be going now, Dr. Jones. Our prize is awaited in Berlin. But I do not wish to leave you down in that awful place... (he give a sign) ...all alone. Belzig and the Nazi move Marion to the hole and, to Belloq's surprise, push her in. Marion falls thirty feet screaming. Indy drops his torch, braces, and catches her! Her weight knocks him to the ground, almost into the snakes. She looks around at the snakes, clinging to him more desperately as he struggles to his feet trying to unload her. MARION Don't put me down! Up at the hole, there's plenty of dissension. BELLOQ The girl was mine! SHLIEMANN She is of no use to us. Only our mission for the Fuhrer matters. Shliemann glances meaningfully around at the other Nazis. SHLIEMANN I wonder sometimes, Monsieur, if you have that clearly in mind. Belloq feels how much he is the outsider, his own vulnerability. He backs down with the wisdom of survival. He turns to look down at Indy and Marion. His manner is gallant. BELLOQ Goodbye, mademoiselle. (a pause, then with respect) Indiana Jones... adieu! Belloq and the others step back from the hole and unseen Nazis slam the heavy stone door into place. Marion screams. Her scream is accompanied by - A huge WHOOSH! as air is sucked out and the chamber is sealed. Half of the torches still burning go out with the sound. The remaining torches continue to extinguish at punctuating intervals throughout the following action and the snakes immediately flood into the newly-darkened spaces. Indy puts Marion down and snatches up two burning torches. He hands one to Marion. INDY Don't panic. There's plenty of time for that later. Wave that at anything that slithers. Indy holds his torch out like a lantern and begins a slow O- turn, his eyes peering into the gloom, examining every inch of wall and ceiling. MARION What are you doing? INDY Just watch the floor. Reminded of the encroaching snakes, Marion waves her torch at the nearest edge of their circle. She looks faint. Indy continues his slow turn. MARION Whatever you're doing, do it faster. INDY (he spots something) There! His head whips around, looking at the pillars around the room. He sees what he wants. He grabs one of the oil canisters, looks back to the spot on the wall he's chosen and splashes oil on the floor in that direction, then lights it. A path opens toward that wall. INDY Come on! Marion is frozen in her spot. Indy drags her after him. He splashes oil the rest of the way to the wall. It lights and Indy pulls Marion over to the wall. He pours the remaining oil in a circle around them, creating a safe zone there. INDY Stay here! MARION (grabbing him) Where are you going? INDY I'll be back in a minute. We're going through this wall. Marion looks at the wall, which looks like all the rest to her. She thinks he's crazy. INDY Just keep your eyes open and get ready to run. No matter what happens to me. MARION (panicked) What do you mean? Too late. Indy runs back through the path of flames to the center of the room. Snakes strike as his flying heels. Indy reaches the base of the pillar which he touched briefly on his original descent. He uses his torch to clear away the scattered snakes climbing on it, then pulls out his whip. He draws it back, then wraps is solidly around the pillar 15 feet up. With the torch in his mouth, he begins climbing the pillar. It moves ominously under his weight. The last two torches still burning on the floor go out. Now the only light in the chamber is provided by the torches held by Indy and Marion and the dwindling oil flames. Snakes move in and surround the base of Indy's pillar. The path between Marion and the center of the room is overrun. The circle of flame around Marion is dying down. She looks beyond it with terror-widened eyes, then up through the increasing smoke at the distant Indy. Near the top of the pillar, Indy's hands strain along his taut whip, which he has moves higher. A snake slithers into view there, inches from Indy's straining face. Indy turns his head so the torch in his mouth can burn it. The snake falls from the pillar. Indy's torch is dwindling. Indy works his body around so that he is on the side of the pillar away from Marion. The pillar moves, showering dust. Indy looks at the chamber wall five feet away, takes a breath and swings his legs up against it. He is now braced between pillar and wall. MARION (O.S.) (screaming) Where are you?! Snakes are moving in force up the pillar toward Indy's dwindling torch. Indy grasps the pillar for dear life, grimaces with exertion and pushes against the wall with all he's got. The pillar begins to break loose of the ceiling, then stops. Indy's eyes are on the torch. It is just a spot of flame now. Snakes are sliding up toward his hands. Indy again pushes against the wall and the torch falls out of his mouth. The pillar goes! In the dim light, we see it fall like a tree directly at Marion. Indy rides it down. The top hits the wall three feet from a cringing Marion and smashes through to a black chamber beyond. Indy flies off into the darkness. Gone. Marion clutches her torch at the black hole. MARION Indy! Where are you?! Please Lord! There is a moment that seems an eternity, then Indy appears like an apparition out of the void. INDY Come on! He grabs her and helps her over the remains of the wall into - INT. THE CATACOMBS The winding string of connected chambers is revealed to them only a few feet at a time as their torch lights the way. MARION The snakes... are they here? INDY I guess not. I think I'd be dead. MARION Do you know where you're going? INDY Absolutely. MARION Thank god. Where? INDY Out. They round a corner and flush a covey of bats. Marion screams. INDY Don't do that. It scares me. Marion gives him a look. They round a corner and begin a walk through a maze of chambers that present for their inspection: moldering mummies and stacked sarcophagi; a room decorated with a thousand human skulls; a wall crawling with huge scarabaeid beetles. Marion is quite naturally a nervous wreck; she jumps when Indy grabs her suddenly and points. INDY Look! WHAT THEY SEE There, coming through the crack in the corner of the next chamber, is white blessed sunlight. EXT. THE TANIS DIGS - NEAR AIRSTRIP - DAY Indy and Marion peek out into the light from the shadows of an abandoned excavation. Before them is the improvised airstrip serving the digs: a crude runway, a tent supply depot, two fuel tank trucks. Down by the fuel trucks a German Mechanic is looking skyward. Now Indy and Marion look there too, drawn by the roaring sound of - A Flying Wing, which is circling over the digs in preparation to landing. Now a new figure approaches the German Mechanic. It is Gobler; he yells to the mechanic, indicating the plane. GOBLER Get is gassed immediately! It has an important cargo to take out! In the distance, the Flying Wing lands and rolls toward the men. Gobler spins and heads back toward the main camp, which is hidden from view by a rise. Indy and Marion watch him go. INDY When the Ark gets loaded, we're already going to be on that plane. The Flying Wing rolls up into the space near the fuel trucks. The German Mechanic puts blue blocks in front of the tires as the engines continue to roar. Indy and Marion run in a crouch to a hiding spot closer to the plane, near the supply tent. Suddenly, a Second German Mechanic appears behind them. He is as surprised as they are, but recovers quickly and swings a big monkey wrench at Indy. Indy grabs the swinging arm and the two men tumble out into the open, wrestling. Marion remains hidden, moving fast among the crates. The first German Mechanic, who is just pulling the fuel hose from the tank truck to the plane, sees the combatants and runs to help his countryman. He is almost upon them when Indy puts the Second German away with a devastating left - right - left combination. He turns to find the first German Mechanic flying at him. The roll toward the rear of the Flying Wing and its lethally spinning reversed propellers. In the cockpit of the Flying Wing, the Pilot has been fiddling with his gauges just prior to shutting off his engines. Now he notices the fight going on outside. The fistfight between Indy and the German Mechanic has taken on a new stomach-tightening dimension. The men are fighting and flailing in and out between the spinning props at the back of the plane's wings. Each man comes within inches of becoming instant mincemeat. The Pilot slides away the top of his cockpit and stands up. He pulls a Luger from his side and points it, waiting for a clear shot at Indy. The German Mechanic kicks Indy away from him and the Pilot aims his pistol. Suddenly, Marion appears behind the Pilot, standing on the opposite wing, and bashes him over the head with one of the blue blocks that was holding the tires. The Pilot drops down into the cockpit, his body falling on the throttle. The engines roar louder, revving up. The plane begins to roll, rotating around its one still- blocked set of tires. Marion grabs onto the cockpit to keep from slipping into the props. She bends into the cockpit, trying to pull the Pilot's body off the throttle. No luck. She grimaces and climbs inside. Her shoulder bumps the top of the cockpit; it slides tightly shut above her. Under the moving wing, Indy delivers a knockout rightcross to the German Mechanic which sends him staggering back toward a roaring propeller. Indy's grimace registers the man's demise and a fine mist of blood wafts toward him. Indy spins toward the sound of crumpling metal and sees - The other prop of the Flying Wing slice into a tank truck. The airplane fuel inside floods out onto the pavement, surrounding the plane. Indy backpedals away from the plane, his eyes searching the scene for Marion. Suddenly, he is shocked to see her in the cockpit. He runs toward her, skidding through the gasoline. INDY Get out! Get out! Marion is struggling with the top of the cockpit. She can't budge it. She's trapped. EXT. THE COMMAND TENT - DAY Three Armed Nazis stand guard around the wooden crate containing the Ark. It is sitting near the flopped-open entrance to the Command Tent and there is furious activity going on here. Belloq, Shliemann, Gobler, Belzig and assorted Aides are packing up all the papers and personal items in preparation for a hasty departure. A large crowd of Arab Diggers is milling about among the tents. They all want to get a look at the Ark. Sallah is among them. All at once, there is a earthshaking explosion. Al eyes turn toward the rise that hides the airstrip. A huge fireball floats into view over there. Everyone starts running toward it. Shliemann yells at Belzig and the Armed Nazis. SHLIEMANN Stay with the Ark! EXT. THE RISE ABOVE AIRSTRIP - DAY Almost all the Arabs and Germans in the digs have congregated here and are staring at the burning remains of the Flying Wing. Belloq and Shliemann arrive just as the second fuel truck blows up. The concussion knocks many of the observers flat. Belloq, Shliemann and Gobler watch the scene in alarm. SHLIEMANN Sabotage! BELLOQ We must get the Ark away from this place immediately! SHLIEMANN (to Gobler) Have it put on the truck. We'll fly out of Cairo. Gobler snaps his heels, turns to go. SHLIEMANN And Gobler - (Gobler stops) I want plenty of protection. Gobler nods and runs off. Shliemann heads back toward camp. Belloq hesitates a long moment, studying the burning wreckage with an odd, suspicious look. Finally, he turns and leaves, passing a nearby stack of barrels. When he has passed, Sallah appears from among the barrels. He searches the crowd for his people and starts a broken field run along some tents to avoid a group of Germans and is running flat-out when someone sticks out a leg and sends him flipping. Sallah, dust all over his face, looks angrily toward the concealed culprit. At once, a flashing white grin splits his darkened face. Indy and Marion, splotched with soot and oil, are hiding in the flap of a tent. Sallah runs into their arms and the three embrace warmly. When they break - SALLAH Holy smoke, my friends! I am so pleased you are not dead. MARION Us too. SALLAH (suddenly remembering) The Ark! They're taking it on a truck to Cairo. INDY Where is it? Sallah gestures to follow and all three run off stealthily through the mostly deserted camp. EXT. AMONG THE TENTS - DAY Sallah, Indy and Marion run into a hiding spot behind some water barrels near the Command Tent. They peek out at this activity - In the big space near the Command Tent is parked an open German staff car; inside is a

kind

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

within a fraction of an inch of the tiny hole in its sun. The edge of the sunlight moving across the miniature city is still a good two feet beyond the spot Belloq has settled on. And now that line of light is broken by the shadow of an ornate sun at the top of the staff. Indy's face reflects his concentration. And then his immense pleasure. He sees what he came for. Out of the miniature city, one small building is being lit by a tiny beam of sunlight in the center of the shadow of the metal sun. And by some trick of ancient artistry, this one building responds to the sunlight like none of the others. The golden light permeates it: it seems to glow. The building is in a direct line with Belloq's - all the Frenchman's other calculations were right - but it is a foot and a half beyond it. EXT. IN THE CAMP - DAY Sallah, sweating profusely, has finished serving the line of Breakfasting Germans and now heads back to replace the kettle and get away. HUNGRY GERMAN Water. Bring us water. INT. MAP ROOM Indy is on his knees at the miniature city, a special tape measure in his hand. Indy has the tape strung from Belloq's mistaken spot to his own correct spot. He gets his reading, leaps up and crosses to the erect staff. He pulls the headpiece off the staff and hides it in his robes. He quickly breaks the wooden staff in two and throws the pieces behind a pile of debris. Then he moves quickly to beneath the skylight. INDY (stage whisper) Sallah. (he waits, then louder) Sallah! More waiting. Nothing. Indy looks around for some alternative means of escape. The room doesn't offer any. He looks up at the skylight again. INDY (loudest) Sallah! A long pause. Then something comes down. A makeshift rope. Really just a bunch of clothing tied together - tunics, robes, pants. But what we see first and most prominently, the first section of Indy's escape rope, is a bright Nazi flag. Indy beams and climbs. EXT. ABOVE THE MAP ROOM - DAY Indy sticks his head out the skylight, sees it clear and flops his body out. Sallah, crouching behind the oil drum, immediately starts pulling in the makeshift rope. Sallah stuffs the rope in the oil drum and the two men begin waking toward some tents. HUNGRY GERMAN (O.S.) Hey, you! More water over here! Sallah glances at Indy, Then hurries back in that direction. The Hungry German focuses on Indy. HUNGRY GERMAN Why aren't you at the digs? Come here! Indy bows in wild subservience and hurries off in the opposite direction. HUNGRY GERMAN (yelling after him, irritated) No, dummkopf, I said come! EXT. BETWEEN TWO TENTS - DAY Indy hustles between the tents. Up ahead, two German Officers stop to talk, blocking his exit. He moves along the side of one of the tents until he finds an opening and slips inside. INT. THE TENT Indy finds himself in a tent set up for rather comfortable living. He has just started to cross it when he hears a loud, excited grunting. He turns toward the sound. In the corner, tied to a chair and gagged is Marion. Indy rushes to her, snatches the gag from her mouth and embraces her. They kiss, deep and long. INDY I though you were dead. MARION They were throwing me around like a rag doll. INDY They must have switched baskets. Thank god for that! Bless those bastards. Have they hurt you? MARION No. Not since I got here. They just asked about you - what you knew. The Frenchman's got the hot's for me. I've been playing that along. Oh, Indy, get me out of here. Indy pulls out a knife and then stops suddenly, thinking. MARION What's wrong? INDY (putting the knife away) I have to leave you here for a little while. I know where the Ark is. If I take you out of here they'll start combing the place for us. MARION (louder) Cut me loose! INDY Keep your voice down. MARION (screaming) I said get me out of - Indy pops the gag back in her mouth. Her eyes widen in fury and she grunts obscenities at him. INDY Look, you don't know how glad I am to see you. And I don't like doing this. But the whole thing will be shot if you don't just sit here quietly. They haven't hurt you in the last twenty-four hours, they aren't going to start now. I'll be back to get you in no time. He kisses her forehead, jumps up and hurries out of the tent. EXT. SAND DUNE OUTSIDE DIGS - DAY With the digs behind them, Indy and Sallah run up to the ridge of the dune and over the top. At the bottom of the far side, Omar's truck is parked. Omar and his men are waiting. EXT. DIFFERENT DUNE - DAY This new spot gives Indy a higher, better view of the whole scene. Indy is using a surveyor's instrument to take a reading - WHAT HE SEES Looking through the instrument, Indy gets a line from the map room through the site where the Nazis are digging in the dunes to a spot several dunes over. We focus on that virgin spot of well-hidden sand as - INDY There! EXT. INDY'S DIG - DAY Omar's truck is parked at the spot just viewed from afar. Dunes rise on either side. One of Omar's men has been posted as a lookout up on a ridge. Everybody else - Indy, Sallah, Omar, and his men - have begun digging for the Wells of the Souls. DISSOLVE TO: SAME SCENE - NIGHT They continue to dig furiously, all of them drenched in sweat. The hole has grown but this is slow, back-breaking work. INT. COMMAND TENT - TANIS DIGS - NIGHT Belloq, SHLIEMANN the ranking Nazi, and Shliemann's Aide, GOBLER, come into the tent, which is full of charts and maps, drawings of the Ark, radio equipment, liquor and food. The men have been out digging for the Well all day. They are tired, discouraged, testy. In all matters, Gobler shows his alliance with Shliemann against Belloq with small looks and body language. The Frenchman has disappointed them and he is feeling the isolation of a scapegoat. Belloq gets himself a drink as Shliemann towels off his face. BELLOQ I cautioned you about being premature with that communiqu to Berlin. Archeology is not an exact science. If does not adhere to time schedules. SHLIEMANN The Fuhrer is not a patient man. He demands constant reports and he expects progress. You led me to believe - BELLOQ Nothing. I have made no promises. I said only that it looked very favorable. Perhaps the Ark will still be found in an adjoining chamber. Based on the information in our possession, my calculations were correct. Perhaps some bit of evidence still eludes us. Perhaps GOBLER Perhaps the girl can help us. Belloq shoots him an angry look. SHLIEMANN My feeling exactly. She was in possession of the original piece for years. She may know much. (really evil) If properly motivated... BELLOQ I tell you, she knows nothing useful. SHLIEMANN I'm surprised to find you squeamish. That is not your reputation. But it needn't concern you. I have the perfect man for this kind of work. Shliemann signals Gobler, who steps outside the tent a moment, calls someone and then reappears. Belloq looks warily at the entrance. After a moment Belzig enters, reeking villainy. When his eyes find Shliemann, his superior, he snaps a crisp "Heil, Hitler!" at him, holding his palm rigid a long time, exposing a burned scar in the prefect shape of the sun medallion. EXT. INDY'S DIG - NIGHT In the eerie conjunction of moonlight and torchlight, Indy and the other men step back in awe of their discovery: there, flush with the bottom of their pit, is a heavy stone entry door to an underground chamber. Special prying tools are produced. With two men assigned to each of the two long tools, they work in unison to open the vault. They open it a foot and the other men rush in to flop the heavy door completely open. Down inside, only blackness. The men quickly prostrate themselves around the edge of the entry to look inside. Indy and Sallah each take a torch and hold them down the hole. WHAT THEY SEE The Well of the Souls is a spooky chamber thirty feet deep. The walls are covered with hieroglyphics and carvings. The roof is supported intermittently by stone pillars, the closest of which hits the roof very near the entry hole. The Well is quite large; as Indy and Sallah wave their torches, more and more of the room is revealed. Now the far end of the chamber comes into view. There is a stone altar down there and on this elaborated carved platform is a stone chest, big enough to enclose the Lost Ark and protect it from the ravages of time. This altar appears to be the only place on the floor of the Well that is not covered by a strange, dark carpet of some kind. INDY The Ark must be in that stone case. What's that gray stuff all over the floor - He breaks off realizing exactly what that carpet is. He blanches. Indiana Jones blanches. Indy drops his torch to the floor of the Well. This is answered by the most horrific HISSING imaginable. WHAT HE SEES That think dark carpet is moving. It's alive. It's thousands and thousands of deadly poisonous snakes - Egyptian asps. And the only thing that seems capable of avoiding this venomous groundcover is the altar. The snakes ebb and flow near it, but never encroach on it, as though repelled by some invisible force. Indy shakes his head and talks to himself. INDY Why snakes? Why did it have to be snakes? Anything else. After a moment of this, he stops. He gathers his energy and resolve and gets back to the task. SALLAH Asps. Very dangerous. Where Indy's torch had landed is a circle of snake-free floor. The snakes hate the flame; they stay away. INDY Lots of torches. And oil. I want a landing strip down there. INT. THE WELL OF THE SOULS Fifteen torches have been dropped to the floor of the chamber, combining to make a good-sized clear zone. Smoke begins to fill the room. Several canisters of oil have been lowered into this space. Now, a large wooden crate is lowered slowly by rope. Rope handles are attached to each end of the crate. Up at the hole, Indy gives Sallah a reassuring pat, takes a breath, and swings carefully onto a rope hanging from the hole. Despite his care, he swings a bit and his feet hit the stone pillar which is so near the entry. Surprisingly, the pillar actually moves a bit, showering a light rain of crumbled stone to the floor below. Indy lands on the floor of the Well. He looks at the altar over a sea of undulating death. He picks up an oil canister and splashes two parallel lines of oil and lights them. A path six feet wide begins to open to the altar. Behind Indy, Sallah comes quickly down the rope. We begin to INTERCUT all the action in the Well from here on with insert shots of the snakes outside the flames. Snakes and snakes. We see: snakes piled and entwined six inches deep; mother snakes laying snake eggs; snake eggs hatching little snakes; snakes cannibalizing other snakes. INT. MARION'S TENT Belloq has been talking to the still-bound Marion. He has removed her gag. He is impatient, angry, uncomfortable. Caught between two forces. BELLOQ Believe me, you made a mistake. If you would just give me something to placate them. Some bit of information. MARION I swear to you, I know nothing more. I have no loyalty to Jones. He's brought me only trouble. He wants to believe her. BELLOQ I cannot control them. Marion's frightened look shifts suddenly to the entrance of the tent. There are new arrivals there - Shliemann, Gobler and Belzig. Belzig carries a black leather case. He steps forward and smiles at Marion. BELZIG We meet again, Fraulein. EXT. INDY'S DIG - JUST BEFORE DAWN The sky is just beginning to lighten over the dunes to the east, making dangerously obvious the thin column of smoke rising from the entrance to the Well. Omar and his men are peering through the smoke down into the Well. INT. THE WELL OF THE SOULS Indy and Sallah are on the altar. Pushing together with all their strength, the heavy stone top of the protective chest begins to slide away. Indy and Sallah exchange slightly wary but very excited looks, then continue to push. As the Ark begins to be exposed, the air seems to almost vibrate, to become electrostatically charged. We hear what sounds like a low HUM. The sea of snakes around the altar draws back further from this presence. As the top of the stone chest is pushed completely off and slams down beside it, we see THE LOST ARK OF THE COVENANT. It is awesomely beautiful, breathtaking. 4 feet long, 2.5 feet wide and 2.5 feet high. It's height, however, is increased by the two sculptured gold angels mounted facing each other on the top. Though the body of the Ark is acacia wood, it has been overlaid with gold. An elaborate gold crown surrounds the top edge and gold carrying rings are attached to each corner. Sallah is mesmerized by the sight. His hand starts to reach out and touch one of the angels, but Indy grabs it. INDY Don't touch it! Never touch it! The wooden crate stands open next to the stone chest. Now Indy extracts the wooden poles from its rings and begins fitting them through the rings in the Ark. This takes some maneuvering by the two men, but soon they are able to lift the Ark clear of the stone chest and into the wooden crate. They extract the poles, fasten the top of the crate and stick the poles through the rings of the wooden crate. They start back toward the space under the hole. The fire strips have begun to dwindle, as have some of the torches. The snakes move slowly in toward the clear spaces. Indy and Sallah eye them nervously as they hurry along with their heavy load. Under the hole, they hurriedly attach ropes to the wooden crate and it is pulled up. Indy's concentration is on the tide of snakes. INDY Hurry up! Why did it have to be snakes? Sallah takes the next rope and climbs quickly out of the Well. Indy has picked up a torch and now throws it at a pool of snakes who are too close for his comfort. He turns and takes hold of the exit rope. He gives it a first tug and it falls down into the Well, landing partly beyond the ring of fire where is instantly disappears in a tangle of angry, hissing asps. Indy looks up at the hole. INDY What the - Smiling down at him from the perimeter of the entry are Belloq, Shliemann and Gobler. BELLOQ Why, Dr. Jones, whatever are you doing in such a nasty place? Belloq and the Germans laugh. INDY Why don't you fellows come down here? I'll show you. BELLOQ No thank you, my friend. (he glances around him) I think we are all very comfortable up here. EXT. INDY'S DIG - DAWN Sunlight is flooding this tableau: Sallah, Omar and his men are being held at bay by ten armed Nazis. The wooden crate sits safely nearby. Belzig and another Nazi have the gagged Marion held in their rough grasp. BELLOQ (down to Indy) After all these years, it is most considerate of you to aid me in this way. As Belloq speaks, Shliemann exchanges a look with Belzig. Belzig smiles and takes the gag from Marion's mouth. INT. WELLS OF THE SOULS Shliemann smiles down at Indy. SHLIEMANN I'm afraid we must be going now, Dr. Jones. Our prize is awaited in Berlin. But I do not wish to leave you down in that awful place... (he give a sign) ...all alone. Belzig and the Nazi move Marion to the hole and, to Belloq's surprise, push her in. Marion falls thirty feet screaming. Indy drops his torch, braces, and catches her! Her weight knocks him to the ground, almost into the snakes. She looks around at the snakes, clinging to him more desperately as he struggles to his feet trying to unload her. MARION Don't put me down! Up at the hole, there's plenty of dissension. BELLOQ The girl was mine! SHLIEMANN She is of no use to us. Only our mission for the Fuhrer matters. Shliemann glances meaningfully around at the other Nazis. SHLIEMANN I wonder sometimes, Monsieur, if you have that clearly in mind. Belloq feels how much he is the outsider, his own vulnerability. He backs down with the wisdom of survival. He turns to look down at Indy and Marion. His manner is gallant. BELLOQ Goodbye, mademoiselle. (a pause, then with respect) Indiana Jones... adieu! Belloq and the others step back from the hole and unseen Nazis slam the heavy stone door into place. Marion screams. Her scream is accompanied by - A huge WHOOSH! as air is sucked out and the chamber is sealed. Half of the torches still burning go out with the sound. The remaining torches continue to extinguish at punctuating intervals throughout the following action and the snakes immediately flood into the newly-darkened spaces. Indy puts Marion down and snatches up two burning torches. He hands one to Marion. INDY Don't panic. There's plenty of time for that later. Wave that at anything that slithers. Indy holds his torch out like a lantern and begins a slow O- turn, his eyes peering into the gloom, examining every inch of wall and ceiling. MARION What are you doing? INDY Just watch the floor. Reminded of the encroaching snakes, Marion waves her torch at the nearest edge of their circle. She looks faint. Indy continues his slow turn. MARION Whatever you're doing, do it faster. INDY (he spots something) There! His head whips around, looking at the pillars around the room. He sees what he wants. He grabs one of the oil canisters, looks back to the spot on the wall he's chosen and splashes oil on the floor in that direction, then lights it. A path opens toward that wall. INDY Come on! Marion is frozen in her spot. Indy drags her after him. He splashes oil the rest of the way to the wall. It lights and Indy pulls Marion over to the wall. He pours the remaining oil in a circle around them, creating a safe zone there. INDY Stay here! MARION (grabbing him) Where are you going? INDY I'll be back in a minute. We're going through this wall. Marion looks at the wall, which looks like all the rest to her. She thinks he's crazy. INDY Just keep your eyes open and get ready to run. No matter what happens to me. MARION (panicked) What do you mean? Too late. Indy runs back through the path of flames to the center of the room. Snakes strike as his flying heels. Indy reaches the base of the pillar which he touched briefly on his original descent. He uses his torch to clear away the scattered snakes climbing on it, then pulls out his whip. He draws it back, then wraps is solidly around the pillar 15 feet up. With the torch in his mouth, he begins climbing the pillar. It moves ominously under his weight. The last two torches still burning on the floor go out. Now the only light in the chamber is provided by the torches held by Indy and Marion and the dwindling oil flames. Snakes move in and surround the base of Indy's pillar. The path between Marion and the center of the room is overrun. The circle of flame around Marion is dying down. She looks beyond it with terror-widened eyes, then up through the increasing smoke at the distant Indy. Near the top of the pillar, Indy's hands strain along his taut whip, which he has moves higher. A snake slithers into view there, inches from Indy's straining face. Indy turns his head so the torch in his mouth can burn it. The snake falls from the pillar. Indy's torch is dwindling. Indy works his body around so that he is on the side of the pillar away from Marion. The pillar moves, showering dust. Indy looks at the chamber wall five feet away, takes a breath and swings his legs up against it. He is now braced between pillar and wall. MARION (O.S.) (screaming) Where are you?! Snakes are moving in force up the pillar toward Indy's dwindling torch. Indy grasps the pillar for dear life, grimaces with exertion and pushes against the wall with all he's got. The pillar begins to break loose of the ceiling, then stops. Indy's eyes are on the torch. It is just a spot of flame now. Snakes are sliding up toward his hands. Indy again pushes against the wall and the torch falls out of his mouth. The pillar goes! In the dim light, we see it fall like a tree directly at Marion. Indy rides it down. The top hits the wall three feet from a cringing Marion and smashes through to a black chamber beyond. Indy flies off into the darkness. Gone. Marion clutches her torch at the black hole. MARION Indy! Where are you?! Please Lord! There is a moment that seems an eternity, then Indy appears like an apparition out of the void. INDY Come on! He grabs her and helps her over the remains of the wall into - INT. THE CATACOMBS The winding string of connected chambers is revealed to them only a few feet at a time as their torch lights the way. MARION The snakes... are they here? INDY I guess not. I think I'd be dead. MARION Do you know where you're going? INDY Absolutely. MARION Thank god. Where? INDY Out. They round a corner and flush a covey of bats. Marion screams. INDY Don't do that. It scares me. Marion gives him a look. They round a corner and begin a walk through a maze of chambers that present for their inspection: moldering mummies and stacked sarcophagi; a room decorated with a thousand human skulls; a wall crawling with huge scarabaeid beetles. Marion is quite naturally a nervous wreck; she jumps when Indy grabs her suddenly and points. INDY Look! WHAT THEY SEE There, coming through the crack in the corner of the next chamber, is white blessed sunlight. EXT. THE TANIS DIGS - NEAR AIRSTRIP - DAY Indy and Marion peek out into the light from the shadows of an abandoned excavation. Before them is the improvised airstrip serving the digs: a crude runway, a tent supply depot, two fuel tank trucks. Down by the fuel trucks a German Mechanic is looking skyward. Now Indy and Marion look there too, drawn by the roaring sound of - A Flying Wing, which is circling over the digs in preparation to landing. Now a new figure approaches the German Mechanic. It is Gobler; he yells to the mechanic, indicating the plane. GOBLER Get is gassed immediately! It has an important cargo to take out! In the distance, the Flying Wing lands and rolls toward the men. Gobler spins and heads back toward the main camp, which is hidden from view by a rise. Indy and Marion watch him go. INDY When the Ark gets loaded, we're already going to be on that plane. The Flying Wing rolls up into the space near the fuel trucks. The German Mechanic puts blue blocks in front of the tires as the engines continue to roar. Indy and Marion run in a crouch to a hiding spot closer to the plane, near the supply tent. Suddenly, a Second German Mechanic appears behind them. He is as surprised as they are, but recovers quickly and swings a big monkey wrench at Indy. Indy grabs the swinging arm and the two men tumble out into the open, wrestling. Marion remains hidden, moving fast among the crates. The first German Mechanic, who is just pulling the fuel hose from the tank truck to the plane, sees the combatants and runs to help his countryman. He is almost upon them when Indy puts the Second German away with a devastating left - right - left combination. He turns to find the first German Mechanic flying at him. The roll toward the rear of the Flying Wing and its lethally spinning reversed propellers. In the cockpit of the Flying Wing, the Pilot has been fiddling with his gauges just prior to shutting off his engines. Now he notices the fight going on outside. The fistfight between Indy and the German Mechanic has taken on a new stomach-tightening dimension. The men are fighting and flailing in and out between the spinning props at the back of the plane's wings. Each man comes within inches of becoming instant mincemeat. The Pilot slides away the top of his cockpit and stands up. He pulls a Luger from his side and points it, waiting for a clear shot at Indy. The German Mechanic kicks Indy away from him and the Pilot aims his pistol. Suddenly, Marion appears behind the Pilot, standing on the opposite wing, and bashes him over the head with one of the blue blocks that was holding the tires. The Pilot drops down into the cockpit, his body falling on the throttle. The engines roar louder, revving up. The plane begins to roll, rotating around its one still- blocked set of tires. Marion grabs onto the cockpit to keep from slipping into the props. She bends into the cockpit, trying to pull the Pilot's body off the throttle. No luck. She grimaces and climbs inside. Her shoulder bumps the top of the cockpit; it slides tightly shut above her. Under the moving wing, Indy delivers a knockout rightcross to the German Mechanic which sends him staggering back toward a roaring propeller. Indy's grimace registers the man's demise and a fine mist of blood wafts toward him. Indy spins toward the sound of crumpling metal and sees - The other prop of the Flying Wing slice into a tank truck. The airplane fuel inside floods out onto the pavement, surrounding the plane. Indy backpedals away from the plane, his eyes searching the scene for Marion. Suddenly, he is shocked to see her in the cockpit. He runs toward her, skidding through the gasoline. INDY Get out! Get out! Marion is struggling with the top of the cockpit. She can't budge it. She's trapped. EXT. THE COMMAND TENT - DAY Three Armed Nazis stand guard around the wooden crate containing the Ark. It is sitting near the flopped-open entrance to the Command Tent and there is furious activity going on here. Belloq, Shliemann, Gobler, Belzig and assorted Aides are packing up all the papers and personal items in preparation for a hasty departure. A large crowd of Arab Diggers is milling about among the tents. They all want to get a look at the Ark. Sallah is among them. All at once, there is a earthshaking explosion. Al eyes turn toward the rise that hides the airstrip. A huge fireball floats into view over there. Everyone starts running toward it. Shliemann yells at Belzig and the Armed Nazis. SHLIEMANN Stay with the Ark! EXT. THE RISE ABOVE AIRSTRIP - DAY Almost all the Arabs and Germans in the digs have congregated here and are staring at the burning remains of the Flying Wing. Belloq and Shliemann arrive just as the second fuel truck blows up. The concussion knocks many of the observers flat. Belloq, Shliemann and Gobler watch the scene in alarm. SHLIEMANN Sabotage! BELLOQ We must get the Ark away from this place immediately! SHLIEMANN (to Gobler) Have it put on the truck. We'll fly out of Cairo. Gobler snaps his heels, turns to go. SHLIEMANN And Gobler - (Gobler stops) I want plenty of protection. Gobler nods and runs off. Shliemann heads back toward camp. Belloq hesitates a long moment, studying the burning wreckage with an odd, suspicious look. Finally, he turns and leaves, passing a nearby stack of barrels. When he has passed, Sallah appears from among the barrels. He searches the crowd for his people and starts a broken field run along some tents to avoid a group of Germans and is running flat-out when someone sticks out a leg and sends him flipping. Sallah, dust all over his face, looks angrily toward the concealed culprit. At once, a flashing white grin splits his darkened face. Indy and Marion, splotched with soot and oil, are hiding in the flap of a tent. Sallah runs into their arms and the three embrace warmly. When they break - SALLAH Holy smoke, my friends! I am so pleased you are not dead. MARION Us too. SALLAH (suddenly remembering) The Ark! They're taking it on a truck to Cairo. INDY Where is it? Sallah gestures to follow and all three run off stealthily through the mostly deserted camp. EXT. AMONG THE TENTS - DAY Sallah, Indy and Marion run into a hiding spot behind some water barrels near the Command Tent. They peek out at this activity - In the big space near the Command Tent is parked an open German staff car; inside is a

knew

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

within a fraction of an inch of the tiny hole in its sun. The edge of the sunlight moving across the miniature city is still a good two feet beyond the spot Belloq has settled on. And now that line of light is broken by the shadow of an ornate sun at the top of the staff. Indy's face reflects his concentration. And then his immense pleasure. He sees what he came for. Out of the miniature city, one small building is being lit by a tiny beam of sunlight in the center of the shadow of the metal sun. And by some trick of ancient artistry, this one building responds to the sunlight like none of the others. The golden light permeates it: it seems to glow. The building is in a direct line with Belloq's - all the Frenchman's other calculations were right - but it is a foot and a half beyond it. EXT. IN THE CAMP - DAY Sallah, sweating profusely, has finished serving the line of Breakfasting Germans and now heads back to replace the kettle and get away. HUNGRY GERMAN Water. Bring us water. INT. MAP ROOM Indy is on his knees at the miniature city, a special tape measure in his hand. Indy has the tape strung from Belloq's mistaken spot to his own correct spot. He gets his reading, leaps up and crosses to the erect staff. He pulls the headpiece off the staff and hides it in his robes. He quickly breaks the wooden staff in two and throws the pieces behind a pile of debris. Then he moves quickly to beneath the skylight. INDY (stage whisper) Sallah. (he waits, then louder) Sallah! More waiting. Nothing. Indy looks around for some alternative means of escape. The room doesn't offer any. He looks up at the skylight again. INDY (loudest) Sallah! A long pause. Then something comes down. A makeshift rope. Really just a bunch of clothing tied together - tunics, robes, pants. But what we see first and most prominently, the first section of Indy's escape rope, is a bright Nazi flag. Indy beams and climbs. EXT. ABOVE THE MAP ROOM - DAY Indy sticks his head out the skylight, sees it clear and flops his body out. Sallah, crouching behind the oil drum, immediately starts pulling in the makeshift rope. Sallah stuffs the rope in the oil drum and the two men begin waking toward some tents. HUNGRY GERMAN (O.S.) Hey, you! More water over here! Sallah glances at Indy, Then hurries back in that direction. The Hungry German focuses on Indy. HUNGRY GERMAN Why aren't you at the digs? Come here! Indy bows in wild subservience and hurries off in the opposite direction. HUNGRY GERMAN (yelling after him, irritated) No, dummkopf, I said come! EXT. BETWEEN TWO TENTS - DAY Indy hustles between the tents. Up ahead, two German Officers stop to talk, blocking his exit. He moves along the side of one of the tents until he finds an opening and slips inside. INT. THE TENT Indy finds himself in a tent set up for rather comfortable living. He has just started to cross it when he hears a loud, excited grunting. He turns toward the sound. In the corner, tied to a chair and gagged is Marion. Indy rushes to her, snatches the gag from her mouth and embraces her. They kiss, deep and long. INDY I though you were dead. MARION They were throwing me around like a rag doll. INDY They must have switched baskets. Thank god for that! Bless those bastards. Have they hurt you? MARION No. Not since I got here. They just asked about you - what you knew. The Frenchman's got the hot's for me. I've been playing that along. Oh, Indy, get me out of here. Indy pulls out a knife and then stops suddenly, thinking. MARION What's wrong? INDY (putting the knife away) I have to leave you here for a little while. I know where the Ark is. If I take you out of here they'll start combing the place for us. MARION (louder) Cut me loose! INDY Keep your voice down. MARION (screaming) I said get me out of - Indy pops the gag back in her mouth. Her eyes widen in fury and she grunts obscenities at him. INDY Look, you don't know how glad I am to see you. And I don't like doing this. But the whole thing will be shot if you don't just sit here quietly. They haven't hurt you in the last twenty-four hours, they aren't going to start now. I'll be back to get you in no time. He kisses her forehead, jumps up and hurries out of the tent. EXT. SAND DUNE OUTSIDE DIGS - DAY With the digs behind them, Indy and Sallah run up to the ridge of the dune and over the top. At the bottom of the far side, Omar's truck is parked. Omar and his men are waiting. EXT. DIFFERENT DUNE - DAY This new spot gives Indy a higher, better view of the whole scene. Indy is using a surveyor's instrument to take a reading - WHAT HE SEES Looking through the instrument, Indy gets a line from the map room through the site where the Nazis are digging in the dunes to a spot several dunes over. We focus on that virgin spot of well-hidden sand as - INDY There! EXT. INDY'S DIG - DAY Omar's truck is parked at the spot just viewed from afar. Dunes rise on either side. One of Omar's men has been posted as a lookout up on a ridge. Everybody else - Indy, Sallah, Omar, and his men - have begun digging for the Wells of the Souls. DISSOLVE TO: SAME SCENE - NIGHT They continue to dig furiously, all of them drenched in sweat. The hole has grown but this is slow, back-breaking work. INT. COMMAND TENT - TANIS DIGS - NIGHT Belloq, SHLIEMANN the ranking Nazi, and Shliemann's Aide, GOBLER, come into the tent, which is full of charts and maps, drawings of the Ark, radio equipment, liquor and food. The men have been out digging for the Well all day. They are tired, discouraged, testy. In all matters, Gobler shows his alliance with Shliemann against Belloq with small looks and body language. The Frenchman has disappointed them and he is feeling the isolation of a scapegoat. Belloq gets himself a drink as Shliemann towels off his face. BELLOQ I cautioned you about being premature with that communiqu to Berlin. Archeology is not an exact science. If does not adhere to time schedules. SHLIEMANN The Fuhrer is not a patient man. He demands constant reports and he expects progress. You led me to believe - BELLOQ Nothing. I have made no promises. I said only that it looked very favorable. Perhaps the Ark will still be found in an adjoining chamber. Based on the information in our possession, my calculations were correct. Perhaps some bit of evidence still eludes us. Perhaps GOBLER Perhaps the girl can help us. Belloq shoots him an angry look. SHLIEMANN My feeling exactly. She was in possession of the original piece for years. She may know much. (really evil) If properly motivated... BELLOQ I tell you, she knows nothing useful. SHLIEMANN I'm surprised to find you squeamish. That is not your reputation. But it needn't concern you. I have the perfect man for this kind of work. Shliemann signals Gobler, who steps outside the tent a moment, calls someone and then reappears. Belloq looks warily at the entrance. After a moment Belzig enters, reeking villainy. When his eyes find Shliemann, his superior, he snaps a crisp "Heil, Hitler!" at him, holding his palm rigid a long time, exposing a burned scar in the prefect shape of the sun medallion. EXT. INDY'S DIG - NIGHT In the eerie conjunction of moonlight and torchlight, Indy and the other men step back in awe of their discovery: there, flush with the bottom of their pit, is a heavy stone entry door to an underground chamber. Special prying tools are produced. With two men assigned to each of the two long tools, they work in unison to open the vault. They open it a foot and the other men rush in to flop the heavy door completely open. Down inside, only blackness. The men quickly prostrate themselves around the edge of the entry to look inside. Indy and Sallah each take a torch and hold them down the hole. WHAT THEY SEE The Well of the Souls is a spooky chamber thirty feet deep. The walls are covered with hieroglyphics and carvings. The roof is supported intermittently by stone pillars, the closest of which hits the roof very near the entry hole. The Well is quite large; as Indy and Sallah wave their torches, more and more of the room is revealed. Now the far end of the chamber comes into view. There is a stone altar down there and on this elaborated carved platform is a stone chest, big enough to enclose the Lost Ark and protect it from the ravages of time. This altar appears to be the only place on the floor of the Well that is not covered by a strange, dark carpet of some kind. INDY The Ark must be in that stone case. What's that gray stuff all over the floor - He breaks off realizing exactly what that carpet is. He blanches. Indiana Jones blanches. Indy drops his torch to the floor of the Well. This is answered by the most horrific HISSING imaginable. WHAT HE SEES That think dark carpet is moving. It's alive. It's thousands and thousands of deadly poisonous snakes - Egyptian asps. And the only thing that seems capable of avoiding this venomous groundcover is the altar. The snakes ebb and flow near it, but never encroach on it, as though repelled by some invisible force. Indy shakes his head and talks to himself. INDY Why snakes? Why did it have to be snakes? Anything else. After a moment of this, he stops. He gathers his energy and resolve and gets back to the task. SALLAH Asps. Very dangerous. Where Indy's torch had landed is a circle of snake-free floor. The snakes hate the flame; they stay away. INDY Lots of torches. And oil. I want a landing strip down there. INT. THE WELL OF THE SOULS Fifteen torches have been dropped to the floor of the chamber, combining to make a good-sized clear zone. Smoke begins to fill the room. Several canisters of oil have been lowered into this space. Now, a large wooden crate is lowered slowly by rope. Rope handles are attached to each end of the crate. Up at the hole, Indy gives Sallah a reassuring pat, takes a breath, and swings carefully onto a rope hanging from the hole. Despite his care, he swings a bit and his feet hit the stone pillar which is so near the entry. Surprisingly, the pillar actually moves a bit, showering a light rain of crumbled stone to the floor below. Indy lands on the floor of the Well. He looks at the altar over a sea of undulating death. He picks up an oil canister and splashes two parallel lines of oil and lights them. A path six feet wide begins to open to the altar. Behind Indy, Sallah comes quickly down the rope. We begin to INTERCUT all the action in the Well from here on with insert shots of the snakes outside the flames. Snakes and snakes. We see: snakes piled and entwined six inches deep; mother snakes laying snake eggs; snake eggs hatching little snakes; snakes cannibalizing other snakes. INT. MARION'S TENT Belloq has been talking to the still-bound Marion. He has removed her gag. He is impatient, angry, uncomfortable. Caught between two forces. BELLOQ Believe me, you made a mistake. If you would just give me something to placate them. Some bit of information. MARION I swear to you, I know nothing more. I have no loyalty to Jones. He's brought me only trouble. He wants to believe her. BELLOQ I cannot control them. Marion's frightened look shifts suddenly to the entrance of the tent. There are new arrivals there - Shliemann, Gobler and Belzig. Belzig carries a black leather case. He steps forward and smiles at Marion. BELZIG We meet again, Fraulein. EXT. INDY'S DIG - JUST BEFORE DAWN The sky is just beginning to lighten over the dunes to the east, making dangerously obvious the thin column of smoke rising from the entrance to the Well. Omar and his men are peering through the smoke down into the Well. INT. THE WELL OF THE SOULS Indy and Sallah are on the altar. Pushing together with all their strength, the heavy stone top of the protective chest begins to slide away. Indy and Sallah exchange slightly wary but very excited looks, then continue to push. As the Ark begins to be exposed, the air seems to almost vibrate, to become electrostatically charged. We hear what sounds like a low HUM. The sea of snakes around the altar draws back further from this presence. As the top of the stone chest is pushed completely off and slams down beside it, we see THE LOST ARK OF THE COVENANT. It is awesomely beautiful, breathtaking. 4 feet long, 2.5 feet wide and 2.5 feet high. It's height, however, is increased by the two sculptured gold angels mounted facing each other on the top. Though the body of the Ark is acacia wood, it has been overlaid with gold. An elaborate gold crown surrounds the top edge and gold carrying rings are attached to each corner. Sallah is mesmerized by the sight. His hand starts to reach out and touch one of the angels, but Indy grabs it. INDY Don't touch it! Never touch it! The wooden crate stands open next to the stone chest. Now Indy extracts the wooden poles from its rings and begins fitting them through the rings in the Ark. This takes some maneuvering by the two men, but soon they are able to lift the Ark clear of the stone chest and into the wooden crate. They extract the poles, fasten the top of the crate and stick the poles through the rings of the wooden crate. They start back toward the space under the hole. The fire strips have begun to dwindle, as have some of the torches. The snakes move slowly in toward the clear spaces. Indy and Sallah eye them nervously as they hurry along with their heavy load. Under the hole, they hurriedly attach ropes to the wooden crate and it is pulled up. Indy's concentration is on the tide of snakes. INDY Hurry up! Why did it have to be snakes? Sallah takes the next rope and climbs quickly out of the Well. Indy has picked up a torch and now throws it at a pool of snakes who are too close for his comfort. He turns and takes hold of the exit rope. He gives it a first tug and it falls down into the Well, landing partly beyond the ring of fire where is instantly disappears in a tangle of angry, hissing asps. Indy looks up at the hole. INDY What the - Smiling down at him from the perimeter of the entry are Belloq, Shliemann and Gobler. BELLOQ Why, Dr. Jones, whatever are you doing in such a nasty place? Belloq and the Germans laugh. INDY Why don't you fellows come down here? I'll show you. BELLOQ No thank you, my friend. (he glances around him) I think we are all very comfortable up here. EXT. INDY'S DIG - DAWN Sunlight is flooding this tableau: Sallah, Omar and his men are being held at bay by ten armed Nazis. The wooden crate sits safely nearby. Belzig and another Nazi have the gagged Marion held in their rough grasp. BELLOQ (down to Indy) After all these years, it is most considerate of you to aid me in this way. As Belloq speaks, Shliemann exchanges a look with Belzig. Belzig smiles and takes the gag from Marion's mouth. INT. WELLS OF THE SOULS Shliemann smiles down at Indy. SHLIEMANN I'm afraid we must be going now, Dr. Jones. Our prize is awaited in Berlin. But I do not wish to leave you down in that awful place... (he give a sign) ...all alone. Belzig and the Nazi move Marion to the hole and, to Belloq's surprise, push her in. Marion falls thirty feet screaming. Indy drops his torch, braces, and catches her! Her weight knocks him to the ground, almost into the snakes. She looks around at the snakes, clinging to him more desperately as he struggles to his feet trying to unload her. MARION Don't put me down! Up at the hole, there's plenty of dissension. BELLOQ The girl was mine! SHLIEMANN She is of no use to us. Only our mission for the Fuhrer matters. Shliemann glances meaningfully around at the other Nazis. SHLIEMANN I wonder sometimes, Monsieur, if you have that clearly in mind. Belloq feels how much he is the outsider, his own vulnerability. He backs down with the wisdom of survival. He turns to look down at Indy and Marion. His manner is gallant. BELLOQ Goodbye, mademoiselle. (a pause, then with respect) Indiana Jones... adieu! Belloq and the others step back from the hole and unseen Nazis slam the heavy stone door into place. Marion screams. Her scream is accompanied by - A huge WHOOSH! as air is sucked out and the chamber is sealed. Half of the torches still burning go out with the sound. The remaining torches continue to extinguish at punctuating intervals throughout the following action and the snakes immediately flood into the newly-darkened spaces. Indy puts Marion down and snatches up two burning torches. He hands one to Marion. INDY Don't panic. There's plenty of time for that later. Wave that at anything that slithers. Indy holds his torch out like a lantern and begins a slow O- turn, his eyes peering into the gloom, examining every inch of wall and ceiling. MARION What are you doing? INDY Just watch the floor. Reminded of the encroaching snakes, Marion waves her torch at the nearest edge of their circle. She looks faint. Indy continues his slow turn. MARION Whatever you're doing, do it faster. INDY (he spots something) There! His head whips around, looking at the pillars around the room. He sees what he wants. He grabs one of the oil canisters, looks back to the spot on the wall he's chosen and splashes oil on the floor in that direction, then lights it. A path opens toward that wall. INDY Come on! Marion is frozen in her spot. Indy drags her after him. He splashes oil the rest of the way to the wall. It lights and Indy pulls Marion over to the wall. He pours the remaining oil in a circle around them, creating a safe zone there. INDY Stay here! MARION (grabbing him) Where are you going? INDY I'll be back in a minute. We're going through this wall. Marion looks at the wall, which looks like all the rest to her. She thinks he's crazy. INDY Just keep your eyes open and get ready to run. No matter what happens to me. MARION (panicked) What do you mean? Too late. Indy runs back through the path of flames to the center of the room. Snakes strike as his flying heels. Indy reaches the base of the pillar which he touched briefly on his original descent. He uses his torch to clear away the scattered snakes climbing on it, then pulls out his whip. He draws it back, then wraps is solidly around the pillar 15 feet up. With the torch in his mouth, he begins climbing the pillar. It moves ominously under his weight. The last two torches still burning on the floor go out. Now the only light in the chamber is provided by the torches held by Indy and Marion and the dwindling oil flames. Snakes move in and surround the base of Indy's pillar. The path between Marion and the center of the room is overrun. The circle of flame around Marion is dying down. She looks beyond it with terror-widened eyes, then up through the increasing smoke at the distant Indy. Near the top of the pillar, Indy's hands strain along his taut whip, which he has moves higher. A snake slithers into view there, inches from Indy's straining face. Indy turns his head so the torch in his mouth can burn it. The snake falls from the pillar. Indy's torch is dwindling. Indy works his body around so that he is on the side of the pillar away from Marion. The pillar moves, showering dust. Indy looks at the chamber wall five feet away, takes a breath and swings his legs up against it. He is now braced between pillar and wall. MARION (O.S.) (screaming) Where are you?! Snakes are moving in force up the pillar toward Indy's dwindling torch. Indy grasps the pillar for dear life, grimaces with exertion and pushes against the wall with all he's got. The pillar begins to break loose of the ceiling, then stops. Indy's eyes are on the torch. It is just a spot of flame now. Snakes are sliding up toward his hands. Indy again pushes against the wall and the torch falls out of his mouth. The pillar goes! In the dim light, we see it fall like a tree directly at Marion. Indy rides it down. The top hits the wall three feet from a cringing Marion and smashes through to a black chamber beyond. Indy flies off into the darkness. Gone. Marion clutches her torch at the black hole. MARION Indy! Where are you?! Please Lord! There is a moment that seems an eternity, then Indy appears like an apparition out of the void. INDY Come on! He grabs her and helps her over the remains of the wall into - INT. THE CATACOMBS The winding string of connected chambers is revealed to them only a few feet at a time as their torch lights the way. MARION The snakes... are they here? INDY I guess not. I think I'd be dead. MARION Do you know where you're going? INDY Absolutely. MARION Thank god. Where? INDY Out. They round a corner and flush a covey of bats. Marion screams. INDY Don't do that. It scares me. Marion gives him a look. They round a corner and begin a walk through a maze of chambers that present for their inspection: moldering mummies and stacked sarcophagi; a room decorated with a thousand human skulls; a wall crawling with huge scarabaeid beetles. Marion is quite naturally a nervous wreck; she jumps when Indy grabs her suddenly and points. INDY Look! WHAT THEY SEE There, coming through the crack in the corner of the next chamber, is white blessed sunlight. EXT. THE TANIS DIGS - NEAR AIRSTRIP - DAY Indy and Marion peek out into the light from the shadows of an abandoned excavation. Before them is the improvised airstrip serving the digs: a crude runway, a tent supply depot, two fuel tank trucks. Down by the fuel trucks a German Mechanic is looking skyward. Now Indy and Marion look there too, drawn by the roaring sound of - A Flying Wing, which is circling over the digs in preparation to landing. Now a new figure approaches the German Mechanic. It is Gobler; he yells to the mechanic, indicating the plane. GOBLER Get is gassed immediately! It has an important cargo to take out! In the distance, the Flying Wing lands and rolls toward the men. Gobler spins and heads back toward the main camp, which is hidden from view by a rise. Indy and Marion watch him go. INDY When the Ark gets loaded, we're already going to be on that plane. The Flying Wing rolls up into the space near the fuel trucks. The German Mechanic puts blue blocks in front of the tires as the engines continue to roar. Indy and Marion run in a crouch to a hiding spot closer to the plane, near the supply tent. Suddenly, a Second German Mechanic appears behind them. He is as surprised as they are, but recovers quickly and swings a big monkey wrench at Indy. Indy grabs the swinging arm and the two men tumble out into the open, wrestling. Marion remains hidden, moving fast among the crates. The first German Mechanic, who is just pulling the fuel hose from the tank truck to the plane, sees the combatants and runs to help his countryman. He is almost upon them when Indy puts the Second German away with a devastating left - right - left combination. He turns to find the first German Mechanic flying at him. The roll toward the rear of the Flying Wing and its lethally spinning reversed propellers. In the cockpit of the Flying Wing, the Pilot has been fiddling with his gauges just prior to shutting off his engines. Now he notices the fight going on outside. The fistfight between Indy and the German Mechanic has taken on a new stomach-tightening dimension. The men are fighting and flailing in and out between the spinning props at the back of the plane's wings. Each man comes within inches of becoming instant mincemeat. The Pilot slides away the top of his cockpit and stands up. He pulls a Luger from his side and points it, waiting for a clear shot at Indy. The German Mechanic kicks Indy away from him and the Pilot aims his pistol. Suddenly, Marion appears behind the Pilot, standing on the opposite wing, and bashes him over the head with one of the blue blocks that was holding the tires. The Pilot drops down into the cockpit, his body falling on the throttle. The engines roar louder, revving up. The plane begins to roll, rotating around its one still- blocked set of tires. Marion grabs onto the cockpit to keep from slipping into the props. She bends into the cockpit, trying to pull the Pilot's body off the throttle. No luck. She grimaces and climbs inside. Her shoulder bumps the top of the cockpit; it slides tightly shut above her. Under the moving wing, Indy delivers a knockout rightcross to the German Mechanic which sends him staggering back toward a roaring propeller. Indy's grimace registers the man's demise and a fine mist of blood wafts toward him. Indy spins toward the sound of crumpling metal and sees - The other prop of the Flying Wing slice into a tank truck. The airplane fuel inside floods out onto the pavement, surrounding the plane. Indy backpedals away from the plane, his eyes searching the scene for Marion. Suddenly, he is shocked to see her in the cockpit. He runs toward her, skidding through the gasoline. INDY Get out! Get out! Marion is struggling with the top of the cockpit. She can't budge it. She's trapped. EXT. THE COMMAND TENT - DAY Three Armed Nazis stand guard around the wooden crate containing the Ark. It is sitting near the flopped-open entrance to the Command Tent and there is furious activity going on here. Belloq, Shliemann, Gobler, Belzig and assorted Aides are packing up all the papers and personal items in preparation for a hasty departure. A large crowd of Arab Diggers is milling about among the tents. They all want to get a look at the Ark. Sallah is among them. All at once, there is a earthshaking explosion. Al eyes turn toward the rise that hides the airstrip. A huge fireball floats into view over there. Everyone starts running toward it. Shliemann yells at Belzig and the Armed Nazis. SHLIEMANN Stay with the Ark! EXT. THE RISE ABOVE AIRSTRIP - DAY Almost all the Arabs and Germans in the digs have congregated here and are staring at the burning remains of the Flying Wing. Belloq and Shliemann arrive just as the second fuel truck blows up. The concussion knocks many of the observers flat. Belloq, Shliemann and Gobler watch the scene in alarm. SHLIEMANN Sabotage! BELLOQ We must get the Ark away from this place immediately! SHLIEMANN (to Gobler) Have it put on the truck. We'll fly out of Cairo. Gobler snaps his heels, turns to go. SHLIEMANN And Gobler - (Gobler stops) I want plenty of protection. Gobler nods and runs off. Shliemann heads back toward camp. Belloq hesitates a long moment, studying the burning wreckage with an odd, suspicious look. Finally, he turns and leaves, passing a nearby stack of barrels. When he has passed, Sallah appears from among the barrels. He searches the crowd for his people and starts a broken field run along some tents to avoid a group of Germans and is running flat-out when someone sticks out a leg and sends him flipping. Sallah, dust all over his face, looks angrily toward the concealed culprit. At once, a flashing white grin splits his darkened face. Indy and Marion, splotched with soot and oil, are hiding in the flap of a tent. Sallah runs into their arms and the three embrace warmly. When they break - SALLAH Holy smoke, my friends! I am so pleased you are not dead. MARION Us too. SALLAH (suddenly remembering) The Ark! They're taking it on a truck to Cairo. INDY Where is it? Sallah gestures to follow and all three run off stealthily through the mostly deserted camp. EXT. AMONG THE TENTS - DAY Sallah, Indy and Marion run into a hiding spot behind some water barrels near the Command Tent. They peek out at this activity - In the big space near the Command Tent is parked an open German staff car; inside is a

long

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

within a fraction of an inch of the tiny hole in its sun. The edge of the sunlight moving across the miniature city is still a good two feet beyond the spot Belloq has settled on. And now that line of light is broken by the shadow of an ornate sun at the top of the staff. Indy's face reflects his concentration. And then his immense pleasure. He sees what he came for. Out of the miniature city, one small building is being lit by a tiny beam of sunlight in the center of the shadow of the metal sun. And by some trick of ancient artistry, this one building responds to the sunlight like none of the others. The golden light permeates it: it seems to glow. The building is in a direct line with Belloq's - all the Frenchman's other calculations were right - but it is a foot and a half beyond it. EXT. IN THE CAMP - DAY Sallah, sweating profusely, has finished serving the line of Breakfasting Germans and now heads back to replace the kettle and get away. HUNGRY GERMAN Water. Bring us water. INT. MAP ROOM Indy is on his knees at the miniature city, a special tape measure in his hand. Indy has the tape strung from Belloq's mistaken spot to his own correct spot. He gets his reading, leaps up and crosses to the erect staff. He pulls the headpiece off the staff and hides it in his robes. He quickly breaks the wooden staff in two and throws the pieces behind a pile of debris. Then he moves quickly to beneath the skylight. INDY (stage whisper) Sallah. (he waits, then louder) Sallah! More waiting. Nothing. Indy looks around for some alternative means of escape. The room doesn't offer any. He looks up at the skylight again. INDY (loudest) Sallah! A long pause. Then something comes down. A makeshift rope. Really just a bunch of clothing tied together - tunics, robes, pants. But what we see first and most prominently, the first section of Indy's escape rope, is a bright Nazi flag. Indy beams and climbs. EXT. ABOVE THE MAP ROOM - DAY Indy sticks his head out the skylight, sees it clear and flops his body out. Sallah, crouching behind the oil drum, immediately starts pulling in the makeshift rope. Sallah stuffs the rope in the oil drum and the two men begin waking toward some tents. HUNGRY GERMAN (O.S.) Hey, you! More water over here! Sallah glances at Indy, Then hurries back in that direction. The Hungry German focuses on Indy. HUNGRY GERMAN Why aren't you at the digs? Come here! Indy bows in wild subservience and hurries off in the opposite direction. HUNGRY GERMAN (yelling after him, irritated) No, dummkopf, I said come! EXT. BETWEEN TWO TENTS - DAY Indy hustles between the tents. Up ahead, two German Officers stop to talk, blocking his exit. He moves along the side of one of the tents until he finds an opening and slips inside. INT. THE TENT Indy finds himself in a tent set up for rather comfortable living. He has just started to cross it when he hears a loud, excited grunting. He turns toward the sound. In the corner, tied to a chair and gagged is Marion. Indy rushes to her, snatches the gag from her mouth and embraces her. They kiss, deep and long. INDY I though you were dead. MARION They were throwing me around like a rag doll. INDY They must have switched baskets. Thank god for that! Bless those bastards. Have they hurt you? MARION No. Not since I got here. They just asked about you - what you knew. The Frenchman's got the hot's for me. I've been playing that along. Oh, Indy, get me out of here. Indy pulls out a knife and then stops suddenly, thinking. MARION What's wrong? INDY (putting the knife away) I have to leave you here for a little while. I know where the Ark is. If I take you out of here they'll start combing the place for us. MARION (louder) Cut me loose! INDY Keep your voice down. MARION (screaming) I said get me out of - Indy pops the gag back in her mouth. Her eyes widen in fury and she grunts obscenities at him. INDY Look, you don't know how glad I am to see you. And I don't like doing this. But the whole thing will be shot if you don't just sit here quietly. They haven't hurt you in the last twenty-four hours, they aren't going to start now. I'll be back to get you in no time. He kisses her forehead, jumps up and hurries out of the tent. EXT. SAND DUNE OUTSIDE DIGS - DAY With the digs behind them, Indy and Sallah run up to the ridge of the dune and over the top. At the bottom of the far side, Omar's truck is parked. Omar and his men are waiting. EXT. DIFFERENT DUNE - DAY This new spot gives Indy a higher, better view of the whole scene. Indy is using a surveyor's instrument to take a reading - WHAT HE SEES Looking through the instrument, Indy gets a line from the map room through the site where the Nazis are digging in the dunes to a spot several dunes over. We focus on that virgin spot of well-hidden sand as - INDY There! EXT. INDY'S DIG - DAY Omar's truck is parked at the spot just viewed from afar. Dunes rise on either side. One of Omar's men has been posted as a lookout up on a ridge. Everybody else - Indy, Sallah, Omar, and his men - have begun digging for the Wells of the Souls. DISSOLVE TO: SAME SCENE - NIGHT They continue to dig furiously, all of them drenched in sweat. The hole has grown but this is slow, back-breaking work. INT. COMMAND TENT - TANIS DIGS - NIGHT Belloq, SHLIEMANN the ranking Nazi, and Shliemann's Aide, GOBLER, come into the tent, which is full of charts and maps, drawings of the Ark, radio equipment, liquor and food. The men have been out digging for the Well all day. They are tired, discouraged, testy. In all matters, Gobler shows his alliance with Shliemann against Belloq with small looks and body language. The Frenchman has disappointed them and he is feeling the isolation of a scapegoat. Belloq gets himself a drink as Shliemann towels off his face. BELLOQ I cautioned you about being premature with that communiqu to Berlin. Archeology is not an exact science. If does not adhere to time schedules. SHLIEMANN The Fuhrer is not a patient man. He demands constant reports and he expects progress. You led me to believe - BELLOQ Nothing. I have made no promises. I said only that it looked very favorable. Perhaps the Ark will still be found in an adjoining chamber. Based on the information in our possession, my calculations were correct. Perhaps some bit of evidence still eludes us. Perhaps GOBLER Perhaps the girl can help us. Belloq shoots him an angry look. SHLIEMANN My feeling exactly. She was in possession of the original piece for years. She may know much. (really evil) If properly motivated... BELLOQ I tell you, she knows nothing useful. SHLIEMANN I'm surprised to find you squeamish. That is not your reputation. But it needn't concern you. I have the perfect man for this kind of work. Shliemann signals Gobler, who steps outside the tent a moment, calls someone and then reappears. Belloq looks warily at the entrance. After a moment Belzig enters, reeking villainy. When his eyes find Shliemann, his superior, he snaps a crisp "Heil, Hitler!" at him, holding his palm rigid a long time, exposing a burned scar in the prefect shape of the sun medallion. EXT. INDY'S DIG - NIGHT In the eerie conjunction of moonlight and torchlight, Indy and the other men step back in awe of their discovery: there, flush with the bottom of their pit, is a heavy stone entry door to an underground chamber. Special prying tools are produced. With two men assigned to each of the two long tools, they work in unison to open the vault. They open it a foot and the other men rush in to flop the heavy door completely open. Down inside, only blackness. The men quickly prostrate themselves around the edge of the entry to look inside. Indy and Sallah each take a torch and hold them down the hole. WHAT THEY SEE The Well of the Souls is a spooky chamber thirty feet deep. The walls are covered with hieroglyphics and carvings. The roof is supported intermittently by stone pillars, the closest of which hits the roof very near the entry hole. The Well is quite large; as Indy and Sallah wave their torches, more and more of the room is revealed. Now the far end of the chamber comes into view. There is a stone altar down there and on this elaborated carved platform is a stone chest, big enough to enclose the Lost Ark and protect it from the ravages of time. This altar appears to be the only place on the floor of the Well that is not covered by a strange, dark carpet of some kind. INDY The Ark must be in that stone case. What's that gray stuff all over the floor - He breaks off realizing exactly what that carpet is. He blanches. Indiana Jones blanches. Indy drops his torch to the floor of the Well. This is answered by the most horrific HISSING imaginable. WHAT HE SEES That think dark carpet is moving. It's alive. It's thousands and thousands of deadly poisonous snakes - Egyptian asps. And the only thing that seems capable of avoiding this venomous groundcover is the altar. The snakes ebb and flow near it, but never encroach on it, as though repelled by some invisible force. Indy shakes his head and talks to himself. INDY Why snakes? Why did it have to be snakes? Anything else. After a moment of this, he stops. He gathers his energy and resolve and gets back to the task. SALLAH Asps. Very dangerous. Where Indy's torch had landed is a circle of snake-free floor. The snakes hate the flame; they stay away. INDY Lots of torches. And oil. I want a landing strip down there. INT. THE WELL OF THE SOULS Fifteen torches have been dropped to the floor of the chamber, combining to make a good-sized clear zone. Smoke begins to fill the room. Several canisters of oil have been lowered into this space. Now, a large wooden crate is lowered slowly by rope. Rope handles are attached to each end of the crate. Up at the hole, Indy gives Sallah a reassuring pat, takes a breath, and swings carefully onto a rope hanging from the hole. Despite his care, he swings a bit and his feet hit the stone pillar which is so near the entry. Surprisingly, the pillar actually moves a bit, showering a light rain of crumbled stone to the floor below. Indy lands on the floor of the Well. He looks at the altar over a sea of undulating death. He picks up an oil canister and splashes two parallel lines of oil and lights them. A path six feet wide begins to open to the altar. Behind Indy, Sallah comes quickly down the rope. We begin to INTERCUT all the action in the Well from here on with insert shots of the snakes outside the flames. Snakes and snakes. We see: snakes piled and entwined six inches deep; mother snakes laying snake eggs; snake eggs hatching little snakes; snakes cannibalizing other snakes. INT. MARION'S TENT Belloq has been talking to the still-bound Marion. He has removed her gag. He is impatient, angry, uncomfortable. Caught between two forces. BELLOQ Believe me, you made a mistake. If you would just give me something to placate them. Some bit of information. MARION I swear to you, I know nothing more. I have no loyalty to Jones. He's brought me only trouble. He wants to believe her. BELLOQ I cannot control them. Marion's frightened look shifts suddenly to the entrance of the tent. There are new arrivals there - Shliemann, Gobler and Belzig. Belzig carries a black leather case. He steps forward and smiles at Marion. BELZIG We meet again, Fraulein. EXT. INDY'S DIG - JUST BEFORE DAWN The sky is just beginning to lighten over the dunes to the east, making dangerously obvious the thin column of smoke rising from the entrance to the Well. Omar and his men are peering through the smoke down into the Well. INT. THE WELL OF THE SOULS Indy and Sallah are on the altar. Pushing together with all their strength, the heavy stone top of the protective chest begins to slide away. Indy and Sallah exchange slightly wary but very excited looks, then continue to push. As the Ark begins to be exposed, the air seems to almost vibrate, to become electrostatically charged. We hear what sounds like a low HUM. The sea of snakes around the altar draws back further from this presence. As the top of the stone chest is pushed completely off and slams down beside it, we see THE LOST ARK OF THE COVENANT. It is awesomely beautiful, breathtaking. 4 feet long, 2.5 feet wide and 2.5 feet high. It's height, however, is increased by the two sculptured gold angels mounted facing each other on the top. Though the body of the Ark is acacia wood, it has been overlaid with gold. An elaborate gold crown surrounds the top edge and gold carrying rings are attached to each corner. Sallah is mesmerized by the sight. His hand starts to reach out and touch one of the angels, but Indy grabs it. INDY Don't touch it! Never touch it! The wooden crate stands open next to the stone chest. Now Indy extracts the wooden poles from its rings and begins fitting them through the rings in the Ark. This takes some maneuvering by the two men, but soon they are able to lift the Ark clear of the stone chest and into the wooden crate. They extract the poles, fasten the top of the crate and stick the poles through the rings of the wooden crate. They start back toward the space under the hole. The fire strips have begun to dwindle, as have some of the torches. The snakes move slowly in toward the clear spaces. Indy and Sallah eye them nervously as they hurry along with their heavy load. Under the hole, they hurriedly attach ropes to the wooden crate and it is pulled up. Indy's concentration is on the tide of snakes. INDY Hurry up! Why did it have to be snakes? Sallah takes the next rope and climbs quickly out of the Well. Indy has picked up a torch and now throws it at a pool of snakes who are too close for his comfort. He turns and takes hold of the exit rope. He gives it a first tug and it falls down into the Well, landing partly beyond the ring of fire where is instantly disappears in a tangle of angry, hissing asps. Indy looks up at the hole. INDY What the - Smiling down at him from the perimeter of the entry are Belloq, Shliemann and Gobler. BELLOQ Why, Dr. Jones, whatever are you doing in such a nasty place? Belloq and the Germans laugh. INDY Why don't you fellows come down here? I'll show you. BELLOQ No thank you, my friend. (he glances around him) I think we are all very comfortable up here. EXT. INDY'S DIG - DAWN Sunlight is flooding this tableau: Sallah, Omar and his men are being held at bay by ten armed Nazis. The wooden crate sits safely nearby. Belzig and another Nazi have the gagged Marion held in their rough grasp. BELLOQ (down to Indy) After all these years, it is most considerate of you to aid me in this way. As Belloq speaks, Shliemann exchanges a look with Belzig. Belzig smiles and takes the gag from Marion's mouth. INT. WELLS OF THE SOULS Shliemann smiles down at Indy. SHLIEMANN I'm afraid we must be going now, Dr. Jones. Our prize is awaited in Berlin. But I do not wish to leave you down in that awful place... (he give a sign) ...all alone. Belzig and the Nazi move Marion to the hole and, to Belloq's surprise, push her in. Marion falls thirty feet screaming. Indy drops his torch, braces, and catches her! Her weight knocks him to the ground, almost into the snakes. She looks around at the snakes, clinging to him more desperately as he struggles to his feet trying to unload her. MARION Don't put me down! Up at the hole, there's plenty of dissension. BELLOQ The girl was mine! SHLIEMANN She is of no use to us. Only our mission for the Fuhrer matters. Shliemann glances meaningfully around at the other Nazis. SHLIEMANN I wonder sometimes, Monsieur, if you have that clearly in mind. Belloq feels how much he is the outsider, his own vulnerability. He backs down with the wisdom of survival. He turns to look down at Indy and Marion. His manner is gallant. BELLOQ Goodbye, mademoiselle. (a pause, then with respect) Indiana Jones... adieu! Belloq and the others step back from the hole and unseen Nazis slam the heavy stone door into place. Marion screams. Her scream is accompanied by - A huge WHOOSH! as air is sucked out and the chamber is sealed. Half of the torches still burning go out with the sound. The remaining torches continue to extinguish at punctuating intervals throughout the following action and the snakes immediately flood into the newly-darkened spaces. Indy puts Marion down and snatches up two burning torches. He hands one to Marion. INDY Don't panic. There's plenty of time for that later. Wave that at anything that slithers. Indy holds his torch out like a lantern and begins a slow O- turn, his eyes peering into the gloom, examining every inch of wall and ceiling. MARION What are you doing? INDY Just watch the floor. Reminded of the encroaching snakes, Marion waves her torch at the nearest edge of their circle. She looks faint. Indy continues his slow turn. MARION Whatever you're doing, do it faster. INDY (he spots something) There! His head whips around, looking at the pillars around the room. He sees what he wants. He grabs one of the oil canisters, looks back to the spot on the wall he's chosen and splashes oil on the floor in that direction, then lights it. A path opens toward that wall. INDY Come on! Marion is frozen in her spot. Indy drags her after him. He splashes oil the rest of the way to the wall. It lights and Indy pulls Marion over to the wall. He pours the remaining oil in a circle around them, creating a safe zone there. INDY Stay here! MARION (grabbing him) Where are you going? INDY I'll be back in a minute. We're going through this wall. Marion looks at the wall, which looks like all the rest to her. She thinks he's crazy. INDY Just keep your eyes open and get ready to run. No matter what happens to me. MARION (panicked) What do you mean? Too late. Indy runs back through the path of flames to the center of the room. Snakes strike as his flying heels. Indy reaches the base of the pillar which he touched briefly on his original descent. He uses his torch to clear away the scattered snakes climbing on it, then pulls out his whip. He draws it back, then wraps is solidly around the pillar 15 feet up. With the torch in his mouth, he begins climbing the pillar. It moves ominously under his weight. The last two torches still burning on the floor go out. Now the only light in the chamber is provided by the torches held by Indy and Marion and the dwindling oil flames. Snakes move in and surround the base of Indy's pillar. The path between Marion and the center of the room is overrun. The circle of flame around Marion is dying down. She looks beyond it with terror-widened eyes, then up through the increasing smoke at the distant Indy. Near the top of the pillar, Indy's hands strain along his taut whip, which he has moves higher. A snake slithers into view there, inches from Indy's straining face. Indy turns his head so the torch in his mouth can burn it. The snake falls from the pillar. Indy's torch is dwindling. Indy works his body around so that he is on the side of the pillar away from Marion. The pillar moves, showering dust. Indy looks at the chamber wall five feet away, takes a breath and swings his legs up against it. He is now braced between pillar and wall. MARION (O.S.) (screaming) Where are you?! Snakes are moving in force up the pillar toward Indy's dwindling torch. Indy grasps the pillar for dear life, grimaces with exertion and pushes against the wall with all he's got. The pillar begins to break loose of the ceiling, then stops. Indy's eyes are on the torch. It is just a spot of flame now. Snakes are sliding up toward his hands. Indy again pushes against the wall and the torch falls out of his mouth. The pillar goes! In the dim light, we see it fall like a tree directly at Marion. Indy rides it down. The top hits the wall three feet from a cringing Marion and smashes through to a black chamber beyond. Indy flies off into the darkness. Gone. Marion clutches her torch at the black hole. MARION Indy! Where are you?! Please Lord! There is a moment that seems an eternity, then Indy appears like an apparition out of the void. INDY Come on! He grabs her and helps her over the remains of the wall into - INT. THE CATACOMBS The winding string of connected chambers is revealed to them only a few feet at a time as their torch lights the way. MARION The snakes... are they here? INDY I guess not. I think I'd be dead. MARION Do you know where you're going? INDY Absolutely. MARION Thank god. Where? INDY Out. They round a corner and flush a covey of bats. Marion screams. INDY Don't do that. It scares me. Marion gives him a look. They round a corner and begin a walk through a maze of chambers that present for their inspection: moldering mummies and stacked sarcophagi; a room decorated with a thousand human skulls; a wall crawling with huge scarabaeid beetles. Marion is quite naturally a nervous wreck; she jumps when Indy grabs her suddenly and points. INDY Look! WHAT THEY SEE There, coming through the crack in the corner of the next chamber, is white blessed sunlight. EXT. THE TANIS DIGS - NEAR AIRSTRIP - DAY Indy and Marion peek out into the light from the shadows of an abandoned excavation. Before them is the improvised airstrip serving the digs: a crude runway, a tent supply depot, two fuel tank trucks. Down by the fuel trucks a German Mechanic is looking skyward. Now Indy and Marion look there too, drawn by the roaring sound of - A Flying Wing, which is circling over the digs in preparation to landing. Now a new figure approaches the German Mechanic. It is Gobler; he yells to the mechanic, indicating the plane. GOBLER Get is gassed immediately! It has an important cargo to take out! In the distance, the Flying Wing lands and rolls toward the men. Gobler spins and heads back toward the main camp, which is hidden from view by a rise. Indy and Marion watch him go. INDY When the Ark gets loaded, we're already going to be on that plane. The Flying Wing rolls up into the space near the fuel trucks. The German Mechanic puts blue blocks in front of the tires as the engines continue to roar. Indy and Marion run in a crouch to a hiding spot closer to the plane, near the supply tent. Suddenly, a Second German Mechanic appears behind them. He is as surprised as they are, but recovers quickly and swings a big monkey wrench at Indy. Indy grabs the swinging arm and the two men tumble out into the open, wrestling. Marion remains hidden, moving fast among the crates. The first German Mechanic, who is just pulling the fuel hose from the tank truck to the plane, sees the combatants and runs to help his countryman. He is almost upon them when Indy puts the Second German away with a devastating left - right - left combination. He turns to find the first German Mechanic flying at him. The roll toward the rear of the Flying Wing and its lethally spinning reversed propellers. In the cockpit of the Flying Wing, the Pilot has been fiddling with his gauges just prior to shutting off his engines. Now he notices the fight going on outside. The fistfight between Indy and the German Mechanic has taken on a new stomach-tightening dimension. The men are fighting and flailing in and out between the spinning props at the back of the plane's wings. Each man comes within inches of becoming instant mincemeat. The Pilot slides away the top of his cockpit and stands up. He pulls a Luger from his side and points it, waiting for a clear shot at Indy. The German Mechanic kicks Indy away from him and the Pilot aims his pistol. Suddenly, Marion appears behind the Pilot, standing on the opposite wing, and bashes him over the head with one of the blue blocks that was holding the tires. The Pilot drops down into the cockpit, his body falling on the throttle. The engines roar louder, revving up. The plane begins to roll, rotating around its one still- blocked set of tires. Marion grabs onto the cockpit to keep from slipping into the props. She bends into the cockpit, trying to pull the Pilot's body off the throttle. No luck. She grimaces and climbs inside. Her shoulder bumps the top of the cockpit; it slides tightly shut above her. Under the moving wing, Indy delivers a knockout rightcross to the German Mechanic which sends him staggering back toward a roaring propeller. Indy's grimace registers the man's demise and a fine mist of blood wafts toward him. Indy spins toward the sound of crumpling metal and sees - The other prop of the Flying Wing slice into a tank truck. The airplane fuel inside floods out onto the pavement, surrounding the plane. Indy backpedals away from the plane, his eyes searching the scene for Marion. Suddenly, he is shocked to see her in the cockpit. He runs toward her, skidding through the gasoline. INDY Get out! Get out! Marion is struggling with the top of the cockpit. She can't budge it. She's trapped. EXT. THE COMMAND TENT - DAY Three Armed Nazis stand guard around the wooden crate containing the Ark. It is sitting near the flopped-open entrance to the Command Tent and there is furious activity going on here. Belloq, Shliemann, Gobler, Belzig and assorted Aides are packing up all the papers and personal items in preparation for a hasty departure. A large crowd of Arab Diggers is milling about among the tents. They all want to get a look at the Ark. Sallah is among them. All at once, there is a earthshaking explosion. Al eyes turn toward the rise that hides the airstrip. A huge fireball floats into view over there. Everyone starts running toward it. Shliemann yells at Belzig and the Armed Nazis. SHLIEMANN Stay with the Ark! EXT. THE RISE ABOVE AIRSTRIP - DAY Almost all the Arabs and Germans in the digs have congregated here and are staring at the burning remains of the Flying Wing. Belloq and Shliemann arrive just as the second fuel truck blows up. The concussion knocks many of the observers flat. Belloq, Shliemann and Gobler watch the scene in alarm. SHLIEMANN Sabotage! BELLOQ We must get the Ark away from this place immediately! SHLIEMANN (to Gobler) Have it put on the truck. We'll fly out of Cairo. Gobler snaps his heels, turns to go. SHLIEMANN And Gobler - (Gobler stops) I want plenty of protection. Gobler nods and runs off. Shliemann heads back toward camp. Belloq hesitates a long moment, studying the burning wreckage with an odd, suspicious look. Finally, he turns and leaves, passing a nearby stack of barrels. When he has passed, Sallah appears from among the barrels. He searches the crowd for his people and starts a broken field run along some tents to avoid a group of Germans and is running flat-out when someone sticks out a leg and sends him flipping. Sallah, dust all over his face, looks angrily toward the concealed culprit. At once, a flashing white grin splits his darkened face. Indy and Marion, splotched with soot and oil, are hiding in the flap of a tent. Sallah runs into their arms and the three embrace warmly. When they break - SALLAH Holy smoke, my friends! I am so pleased you are not dead. MARION Us too. SALLAH (suddenly remembering) The Ark! They're taking it on a truck to Cairo. INDY Where is it? Sallah gestures to follow and all three run off stealthily through the mostly deserted camp. EXT. AMONG THE TENTS - DAY Sallah, Indy and Marion run into a hiding spot behind some water barrels near the Command Tent. They peek out at this activity - In the big space near the Command Tent is parked an open German staff car; inside is a

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women,--who in all other views of life are perhaps tender and soft-natured,--is one of the marvels of our social system. It is as though a certain line were drawn to include all women,--a line, but, alas, little more than a line,--by overstepping which, or rather by being known to have overstepped it, a woman ceases to be a woman in the estimation of her own sex. That the existence of this feeling has strong effect in saving women from passing the line, none of us can doubt. That its general tendency may be good rather than evil, is possible. But the hardness necessary to preserve the rule, a hardness which must be exclusively feminine but which is seldom wanting, is a marvellous feature in the female character. Lady Mary Quin probably thought but little on the subject. The women in the cottage on the cliff, who were befriended by Father Marty, were to her dangerous scheming Roman Catholic adventurers. The proper triumph of Protestant virtue required that they should fail in their adventures. She had always known that there would be something disreputable heard of them sooner or later. When the wretched Captain came into the neighbourhood,--and she soon heard of his coming,--she was gratified by feeling that her convictions had been correct. When the sad tidings as to poor Kate reached her ears, she had "known that it would be so." That such a girl should be made Countess of Scroope in reward for her wickedness would be to her an event horrible, almost contrary to Divine Providence,--a testimony that the Evil One was being allowed peculiar power at the moment, and would no doubt have been used in her own circles to show the ruin that had been brought upon the country by Catholic emancipation. She did not for a moment doubt that the present Earl should be encouraged to break any promises of marriage to the making of which he might have been allured. But it was not so with Lady Scroope. She, indeed, came to the same conclusion as her friend, but she did so with much difficulty and after many inward struggles. She understood and valued the customs of the magic line. In her heart of hearts she approved of a different code of morals for men and women. That which merited instant, and as regarded this world, perpetual condemnation in a woman, might in a man be very easily forgiven. A sigh, a shake of the head, and some small innocent stratagem that might lead to a happy marriage and settlement in life with increased income, would have been her treatment of such sin for the heirs of the great and wealthy. She knew that the world could not afford to ostracise the men,--though happily it might condemn the women. Nevertheless, when she came to the single separated instance, though her heart melted with no ruth for the woman,--in such cases the woman must be seen before the ruth is felt,--though pity for Kate O'Hara did not influence her, she did acknowledge the sanctity of a gentleman's word. If, as Lady Mary told her, and as she could so well believe, the present Earl of Scroope had given to this girl a promise that he would marry her, if he had bound himself by his pledged word, as a nobleman and a gentleman, how could she bid him become a perjured knave? Sans reproche! Was he thus to begin to live and to deserve the motto of his house by the conduct of his life? But then the evil that would be done was so great! She did not for a moment doubt all that Lady Mary told her about the girl. The worst of it had indeed been admitted. She was a Roman Catholic, ill-born, ill-connected, damaged utterly by a parent so low that nothing lower could possibly be raked out of the world's gutters. And now the girl herself was--a castaway. Such a marriage as that of which Lady Mary spoke would not only injure the house of Scroope for the present generation, but would tend to its final downfall. Would it not be known throughout all England that the next Earl of Scroope would be the grandson of a convict? Might there not be questions as to the legitimacy of the assumed heir? She herself knew of noble families which had been scattered, confounded, and almost ruined by such imprudence. Hitherto the family of Scroope had been continued from generation to generation without stain,--almost without stain. It had felt it to be a fortunate thing that the late heir had died because of the pollution of his wretched marriage. And now must evil as bad befall it, worse evil perhaps, through the folly of this young man? Must that proud motto be taken down from its place in the hall from very shame? But the evil had not been done yet, and it might be that her words could save the house from ruin and disgrace. She was a woman of whom it may be said that whatever difficulty she might have in deciding a question she could recognise the necessity of a decision and could abide by it when she had made it. It was with great difficulty that she could bring herself to think that an Earl of Scroope should be false to a promise by which he had seduced a woman, but she did succeed in bringing herself to such thought. Her very heart bled within her as she acknowledged the necessity. A lie to her was abominable. A lie, to be told by herself, would have been hideous to her. A lie to be told by him, was worse. As virtue, what she called virtue, was the one thing indispensable to women, so was truth the one thing indispensable to men. And yet she must tell him to lie, and having resolved so to tell him, must use all her intellect to defend the lie,--and to insist upon it. He was determined to return to Ireland, and there was nothing that she could do to prevent his return. She could not bid him shun a danger simply because it was a danger. He was his own master, and were she to do so he would only laugh at her. Of authority with him she had none. If she spoke, he must listen. Her position would secure so much to her from courtesy,--and were she to speak of the duty which he owed to his name and to the family he could hardly laugh. She therefore sent to him a message. Would he kindly go to her in her own room? Of course he attended to her wishes and went. "You mean to leave us to-morrow, Fred," she said. We all know the peculiar solemnity of a widow's dress,--the look of self-sacrifice on the part of the woman which the dress creates; and have perhaps recognised the fact that if the woman be deterred by no necessities of oeconomy in her toilet,--as in such material circumstances the splendour is more perfect if splendour be the object,--so also is the self-sacrifice more abject. And with this widow an appearance of melancholy solemnity, almost of woe, was natural to her. She was one whose life had ever been serious, solemn, and sad. Wealth and the outward pomp of circumstances had conferred upon her a certain dignity; and with that doubtless there had reached her some feeling of satisfaction. Religion too had given her comfort, and a routine of small duties had saved her from the wretchedness of ennui. But life with her had had no laughter, and had seldom smiled. Now in the first days of her widowhood she regarded her course as run, and looked upon herself as one who, in speaking, almost spoke from the tomb. All this had its effect upon the young lord. She did inspire him with a certain awe; and though her weeds gave her no authority, they did give her weight. "Yes; I shall start to-morrow," he replied. "And you still mean to go to Ireland?" "Yes;--I must go to Ireland. I shan't stay there, you know." Then she paused a moment before she proceeded. "Shall you see--that young woman when you are there?" "I suppose I shall see her." "Pray do not think that I desire to interfere with your private affairs. I know well that I have no right to assume over you any of that affectionate authority which a mother might have,--though in truth I love you as a son." "I would treat you just as I would my own mother." "No, Fred; that cannot be so. A mother would throw her arms round you and cling to you if she saw you going into danger. A mother would follow you, hoping that she might save you." "But there is no danger." "Ah, Fred, I fear there is." "What danger?" "You are now the head of one of the oldest and the noblest families in this which in my heart I believe to be the least sinful among the sinful nations of the wicked world." "I don't quite know how that may be;--I mean about the world. Of course I understand about the family." "But you love your country?" "Oh yes. I don't think there's any place like England,--to live in." "And England is what it is because there are still some left among us who are born to high rank and who know how to live up to the standard that is required of them. If ever there was such a man, your uncle was such a one." "I'm sure he was;--just what he ought to have been." "Honourable, true, affectionate, self-denying, affable to all men, but ever conscious of his rank, giving much because much had been given to him, asserting his nobility for the benefit of those around him, proud of his order for the sake of his country, bearing his sorrows with the dignity of silence, a nobleman all over, living on to the end sans reproche! He was a man whom you may dare to imitate, though to follow him may be difficult." She spoke not loudly, but clearly, looking him full in the face as she stood motionless before him. "He was all that," said Fred, almost overpowered by the sincere solemnity of his aunt's manner. "Will you try to walk in his footsteps?" "Two men can never be like one another in that way. I shall never be what he was. But I'll endeavour to get along as well as I can." "You will remember your order?" "Yes, I will. I do remember it. Mind you, aunt, I am not glad that I belong to it. I think I do understand about it all, and will do my best. But Jack would have made a better Earl than I shall do. That's the truth." "The Lord God has placed you,--and you must pray to Him that He will enable you to do your duty in that state of life to which it has pleased Him to call you. You are here and must bear his decree; and whether it be a privilege to enjoy, you must enjoy it, or a burden to bear, you must endure it." "It is so of course." "Knowing that, you must know also how incumbent it is upon you not to defile the stock from which you are sprung." "I suppose it has been defiled," said Fred, who had been looking into the history of the family. "The ninth Earl seems to have married nobody knows whom. And his son was my uncle's grandfather." This was a blow to Lady Scroope, but she bore it with dignity and courage. "You would hardly wish it to be said that you had copied the only one of your ancestors who did amiss. The world was rougher then than it is now, and he of whom you speak was a soldier." "I'm a soldier too," said the Earl. "Oh, Fred, is it thus you answer me! He was a soldier in rough times, when there were wars. I think he married when he was with the army under Marlborough." "I have not seen anything of that kind, certainly." "Your country is at peace, and your place is here, among your tenantry, at Scroope. You will promise me, Fred, that you will not marry this girl in Ireland?" "If I do, the fault will be all with that old maid at Castle Quin." "Do not say that, Fred. It is impossible. Let her conduct have been what it may, it cannot make that right in you which would have been wrong, or that wrong which would have been right." "She's a nasty meddlesome cat." "I will not talk about her. What good would it do? You cannot at any rate be surprised at my extreme anxiety. You did promise your uncle most solemnly that you would never marry this young lady." "If I did, that ought to be enough." He was now waxing angry and his face was becoming red. He would bear a good deal from his uncle's widow, but he felt his own power and was not prepared to bear much more. "Of course I cannot bind you. I know well how impotent I am,--how powerless to exercise control. But I think, Fred, that for your uncle's sake you will not refuse to repeat your promise to me, if you intend to keep it. Why is it that I am so anxious? It is for your sake, and for the sake of a name which should be dearer to you than it is even to me." "I have no intention of marrying at all." "Do not say that." "I do say it. I do not want to keep either you or Jack in the dark as to my future life. This young lady,--of whom, by the by, neither you nor Lady Mary Quin know anything, shall not become Countess of Scroope. To that I have made up my mind." "Thank God." "But as long as she lives I will make no woman Countess of Scroope. Let Jack marry this girl that he is in love with. They shall live here and have the house to themselves if they like it. He will look after the property and shall have whatever income old Mellerby thinks proper. I will keep the promise I made to my uncle,--but the keeping of it will make it impossible for me to live here. I would prefer now that you should say no more on the subject." Then he left her, quitting the room with some stateliness in his step, as though conscious that at such a moment as this it behoved him to assume his rank. The dowager sat alone all that morning thinking of the thing she had done. She did now believe that he was positively resolved not to marry Kate O'Hara, and she believed also that she herself had fixed him in that resolution. In doing so had she or had she not committed a deadly sin? She knew almost with accuracy what had occurred on the coast of Clare. A young girl, innocent herself up to that moment, had been enticed to her ruin by words of love which had been hallowed in her ears by vows of marriage. Those vows which had possessed so deadly an efficacy, were now to be simply broken! The cruelty to her would be damnable, devilish,--surely worthy of hell if any sin of man can be so called! And she, who could not divest herself of a certain pride taken in the austere morality of her own life, she who was now a widow anxious to devote her life solely to God, had persuaded the man to this sin, in order that her successor as Countess of Scroope might not be, in her opinion, unfitting for nobility! The young lord had promised her that he would be guilty of this sin, so damnable, so devilish, telling her as he did so, that as a consequence of his promise he must continue to live a life of wickedness! In the agony of her spirit she threw herself upon her knees and implored the Lord to pardon her and to guide her. But even while kneeling before the throne of heaven she could not drive the pride of birth out of her heart. That the young Earl might be saved from the damning sin and also from the polluting marriage;--that was the prayer she prayed. CHAPTER VIII. LOOSE ABOUT THE WORLD. The Countess was seen no more on that day,--was no more seen at least by either of the two brothers. Miss Mellerby was with her now and again, but on each occasion only for a few minutes, and reported that Lady Scroope was ill and could not appear at dinner. She would, however, see her nephew before he started on the following morning. Fred himself was much affected by the interview with his aunt. No doubt he had made a former promise to his uncle, similar to that which had now been exacted from him. No doubt he had himself resolved, after what he had thought to be mature consideration that he would not marry the girl, justifying to himself this decision by the deceit which he thought had been practised upon him in regard to Captain O'Hara. Nevertheless, he felt that by what had now occurred he was bound more strongly against the marriage than he had ever been bound before. His promise to his uncle might have been regarded as being obligatory only as long as his uncle lived. His own decision he would have been at liberty to change when he pleased to do so. But, though his aunt was almost nothing to him,--was not in very truth his aunt, but only the widow of his uncle, there had been a solemnity about the engagement as he had now made it with her, which he felt to be definitely binding. He must go to Ardkill prepared to tell them absolutely the truth. He would make any arrangement they pleased as to their future joint lives, so long as it was an arrangement by which Kate should not become Countess of Scroope. He did not attempt to conceal from himself the dreadful nature of the task before him. He knew what would be the indignation of the priest. He could picture to himself the ferocity of the mother, defending her young as a lioness would her whelp. He could imagine that that dagger might again be brought from its hiding place. And, worse than all, he would see the girl prostrate in her woe, and appealing to his love and to his oaths, when the truth as to her future life should be revealed to her. But yet he did not think of shunning the task before him. He could not endure to live a coward in his own esteem. He was unlike himself and very melancholy. "It has been so good of you to remain here," he said to Sophie Mellerby. They had now become intimate and almost attached to each other as friends. If she had allowed a spark of hope to become bright within her heart in regard to the young Earl that had long since been quenched. She had acknowledged to herself that had it been possible in other respects they would not have suited each other,--and now they were friends. "I love your aunt dearly and have been very glad to be with her." "I wish you would learn to love somebody else dearly." "Perhaps I shall, some day,--somebody else; though I don't at all know who it may be." "You know whom I mean." "I suppose I do." "And why not love him? Isn't he a good fellow?" "One can't love all the good fellows, Lord Scroope." "You'll never find a better one than he is." "Did he commission you to speak for him?" "You know he didn't. You know that he would be the last man in the world to do so?" "I was surprised." "But I had a reason for speaking." "No doubt." "I don't suppose it will have any effect with you;--but it is something you ought to know. If any man of my age can be supposed to have made up his mind on such a matter, you may believe that I have made up my mind that I will--never marry." "What nonsense, Lord Scroope." "Well;--yes; perhaps it is. But I am so convinced of it myself that I shall ask my brother to come and live here--permanently,--as master of the place. As he would have to leave his regiment it would of course be necessary that his position here should be settled,--and it shall be settled." "I most sincerely hope that you will always live here yourself." "It won't suit me. Circumstances have made it impossible. If he will not do so, nor my aunt, the house must be shut up. I am most anxious that this should not be done. I shall implore him to remain here, and to be here exactly as I should have been,--had things with me not have been so very unfortunate. He will at any rate have a house to offer you, if--" "Lord Scroope!" "I know what you are going to say, Sophie." "I don't know that I am as yet disposed to marry for the sake of a house to shelter me." "Of course you would say that; but still I think that I have been right to tell you. I am sure you will believe my assurance that Jack knows nothing of all this." That same evening he said nearly the same thing to his brother, though in doing so he made no special allusion to Sophie Mellerby. "I know that there is a great deal that a fellow should do, living in such a house as this, but I am not the man to do it. It's a very good kind of life, if you happen to be up to it. I am not, but you are." "My dear Fred, you can't change the accidents of birth." "In a great measure I can; or at least we can do so between us. You can't be Lord Scroope, but you can be master of Scroope Manor." "No I can't;--and, which is more, I won't. Don't think I am uncivil." "You are uncivil, Jack." "At any rate I am not ungrateful. I only want you to understand thoroughly that such an arrangement is out of the question. In no condition of life would I care to be the locum tenens for another man. You are now five or six and twenty. At thirty you may be a married man with an absolute need for your own house." "I would execute any deed." "So that I might be enabled to keep the owner of the property out of the only place that is fit for him! It is a power which I should not use, and do not wish to possess. Believe me, Fred, that a man is bound to submit himself to the circumstances by which he is surrounded, when it is clear that they are beneficial to the world at large. There must be an Earl of Scroope, and you at present are the man." They were sitting together out upon the terrace after dinner, and for a time there was silence. His brother's arguments were too strong for the young lord, and it was out of his power to deal with one so dogmatic. But he did not forget the last words that had been spoken. It may be that "I shall not be the man very long," he said at last. "Any of us may die to-day or to-morrow," said Jack. "I have a kind of presentiment,--not that I shall die, but that I shall never see Scroope again. It seems as though I were certainly leaving for ever a place that has always been distasteful to me." "I never believe anything of presentiments." "No; of course not. You're not that sort of fellow at all. But I am. I can't think of myself as living here with a dozen old fogies about the place all doing nothing, touching their hats, my-lording me at every turn, looking respectable, but as idle as pickpockets." "You'll have to do it." "Perhaps I shall, but I don't think it." Then there was again silence for a time. "The less said about it the better, but I know that I've got a very difficult job before me in Ireland." "I don't envy you, Fred;--not that." "It is no use talking about it. It has got to be done, and the sooner done the better. What I shall do when it is done, I have not the most remote idea. Where I shall be living this day month I cannot guess. I can only say one thing certainly, and that is that I shall not come back here. There never was a fellow so loose about the world as I am." It was terrible that a young man who had it in his power to do so much good or so much evil should have had nothing to bind him to the better course! There was the motto of his house, and the promises which he had made to his uncle persuading him to that which was respectable and as he thought dull; and opposed to those influences there was an unconquerable feeling on his own part that he was altogether unfitted for the kind of life that was expected of him. Joined to this there was the fact of that unfortunate connection in Ireland from which he knew that it would be base to fly, and which, as it seemed to him, made any attempt at respectability impossible to him. Early on the following morning, as he was preparing to start, his aunt again sent for him. She came out to him in the sitting-room adjoining her bedroom and there embraced him. Her eyes were red with weeping, and her face wan with care. "Fred," she said; "dear Fred." "Good-bye, aunt. The last word I have to say is that I implore you not to leave Scroope as long as you are comfortable here." "You will come back?" "I cannot say anything certain about that." She still had hold of him with both hands and was looking into his face with loving, frightened, wistful eyes. "I know," she said, "that you will be thinking of what passed between us yesterday." "Certainly I shall remember it." "I have been praying for you, Fred; and now I tell you to look to your Father which is in Heaven for guidance, and not to take it from any poor frail sinful human being. Ask Him to keep your feet steady in the path, and your heart pure, and your thoughts free from wickedness. Oh, Fred, keep your mind and body clear before Him, and if you will kneel to Him for protection, He will show you a way through all difficulties." It was thus that she intended to tell him that his promise to her, made on the previous day, was to count for nought, and that he was to marry the girl if by no other way he could release himself from vice. But she could not bring herself to declare to him in plain terms that he had better marry Kate O'Hara, and bring his new Countess to Scroope in order that she might be fitly received by her predecessor. It might be that the Lord would still show him a way out of the two evils. But his brother was more clear of purpose with him, as they walked together out to the yard in which the young Earl was to get into his carriage. "Upon the whole, Fred, if I were you I should marry that girl." This he said quite abruptly. The young lord shook his head. "It may be that I do not know all the circumstances. If they be as I have heard them from you, I should marry her. Good-bye. Let me hear from you, when you have settled as to going anywhere." "I shall be sure to write," said Fred as he took the reins and seated him in the phaeton. His brother's advice he understood plainly, and that of his aunt he thought that he understood. But he shook his head again as he told himself that he could not now be guided by either of them. CHAPTER IX. AT LISCANNOR. The young lord slept one night at Ennis, and on the third morning after his departure from Scroope, started in his gig for Liscannor and the cliffs of Moher. He took a servant with him and a change of clothes. And as he went his heart was very heavy. He could not live a coward in his own esteem. Were it not so how willingly would he have saved himself from the misery of this journey, and have sent to his Kate to bid her come to him in England! He feared the priest, and he feared his Kate's mother;--not her dagger, but her eyes and scorching words. He altogether doubted his own powers to perform satisfactorily the task before him. He knew men who could do it. His brother Jack would do it, were it possible that his brother Jack should be in such a position. But for himself, he was conscious of a softness of heart, a feminine tenderness, which,--to do him justice,--he did not mistake for sincerity, that rendered him unfit for the task before him. The farther he journeyed from Scroope and the nearer that he found himself to the cliffs the stronger did the feeling grow within him, till it had become almost

soldier

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

women,--who in all other views of life are perhaps tender and soft-natured,--is one of the marvels of our social system. It is as though a certain line were drawn to include all women,--a line, but, alas, little more than a line,--by overstepping which, or rather by being known to have overstepped it, a woman ceases to be a woman in the estimation of her own sex. That the existence of this feeling has strong effect in saving women from passing the line, none of us can doubt. That its general tendency may be good rather than evil, is possible. But the hardness necessary to preserve the rule, a hardness which must be exclusively feminine but which is seldom wanting, is a marvellous feature in the female character. Lady Mary Quin probably thought but little on the subject. The women in the cottage on the cliff, who were befriended by Father Marty, were to her dangerous scheming Roman Catholic adventurers. The proper triumph of Protestant virtue required that they should fail in their adventures. She had always known that there would be something disreputable heard of them sooner or later. When the wretched Captain came into the neighbourhood,--and she soon heard of his coming,--she was gratified by feeling that her convictions had been correct. When the sad tidings as to poor Kate reached her ears, she had "known that it would be so." That such a girl should be made Countess of Scroope in reward for her wickedness would be to her an event horrible, almost contrary to Divine Providence,--a testimony that the Evil One was being allowed peculiar power at the moment, and would no doubt have been used in her own circles to show the ruin that had been brought upon the country by Catholic emancipation. She did not for a moment doubt that the present Earl should be encouraged to break any promises of marriage to the making of which he might have been allured. But it was not so with Lady Scroope. She, indeed, came to the same conclusion as her friend, but she did so with much difficulty and after many inward struggles. She understood and valued the customs of the magic line. In her heart of hearts she approved of a different code of morals for men and women. That which merited instant, and as regarded this world, perpetual condemnation in a woman, might in a man be very easily forgiven. A sigh, a shake of the head, and some small innocent stratagem that might lead to a happy marriage and settlement in life with increased income, would have been her treatment of such sin for the heirs of the great and wealthy. She knew that the world could not afford to ostracise the men,--though happily it might condemn the women. Nevertheless, when she came to the single separated instance, though her heart melted with no ruth for the woman,--in such cases the woman must be seen before the ruth is felt,--though pity for Kate O'Hara did not influence her, she did acknowledge the sanctity of a gentleman's word. If, as Lady Mary told her, and as she could so well believe, the present Earl of Scroope had given to this girl a promise that he would marry her, if he had bound himself by his pledged word, as a nobleman and a gentleman, how could she bid him become a perjured knave? Sans reproche! Was he thus to begin to live and to deserve the motto of his house by the conduct of his life? But then the evil that would be done was so great! She did not for a moment doubt all that Lady Mary told her about the girl. The worst of it had indeed been admitted. She was a Roman Catholic, ill-born, ill-connected, damaged utterly by a parent so low that nothing lower could possibly be raked out of the world's gutters. And now the girl herself was--a castaway. Such a marriage as that of which Lady Mary spoke would not only injure the house of Scroope for the present generation, but would tend to its final downfall. Would it not be known throughout all England that the next Earl of Scroope would be the grandson of a convict? Might there not be questions as to the legitimacy of the assumed heir? She herself knew of noble families which had been scattered, confounded, and almost ruined by such imprudence. Hitherto the family of Scroope had been continued from generation to generation without stain,--almost without stain. It had felt it to be a fortunate thing that the late heir had died because of the pollution of his wretched marriage. And now must evil as bad befall it, worse evil perhaps, through the folly of this young man? Must that proud motto be taken down from its place in the hall from very shame? But the evil had not been done yet, and it might be that her words could save the house from ruin and disgrace. She was a woman of whom it may be said that whatever difficulty she might have in deciding a question she could recognise the necessity of a decision and could abide by it when she had made it. It was with great difficulty that she could bring herself to think that an Earl of Scroope should be false to a promise by which he had seduced a woman, but she did succeed in bringing herself to such thought. Her very heart bled within her as she acknowledged the necessity. A lie to her was abominable. A lie, to be told by herself, would have been hideous to her. A lie to be told by him, was worse. As virtue, what she called virtue, was the one thing indispensable to women, so was truth the one thing indispensable to men. And yet she must tell him to lie, and having resolved so to tell him, must use all her intellect to defend the lie,--and to insist upon it. He was determined to return to Ireland, and there was nothing that she could do to prevent his return. She could not bid him shun a danger simply because it was a danger. He was his own master, and were she to do so he would only laugh at her. Of authority with him she had none. If she spoke, he must listen. Her position would secure so much to her from courtesy,--and were she to speak of the duty which he owed to his name and to the family he could hardly laugh. She therefore sent to him a message. Would he kindly go to her in her own room? Of course he attended to her wishes and went. "You mean to leave us to-morrow, Fred," she said. We all know the peculiar solemnity of a widow's dress,--the look of self-sacrifice on the part of the woman which the dress creates; and have perhaps recognised the fact that if the woman be deterred by no necessities of oeconomy in her toilet,--as in such material circumstances the splendour is more perfect if splendour be the object,--so also is the self-sacrifice more abject. And with this widow an appearance of melancholy solemnity, almost of woe, was natural to her. She was one whose life had ever been serious, solemn, and sad. Wealth and the outward pomp of circumstances had conferred upon her a certain dignity; and with that doubtless there had reached her some feeling of satisfaction. Religion too had given her comfort, and a routine of small duties had saved her from the wretchedness of ennui. But life with her had had no laughter, and had seldom smiled. Now in the first days of her widowhood she regarded her course as run, and looked upon herself as one who, in speaking, almost spoke from the tomb. All this had its effect upon the young lord. She did inspire him with a certain awe; and though her weeds gave her no authority, they did give her weight. "Yes; I shall start to-morrow," he replied. "And you still mean to go to Ireland?" "Yes;--I must go to Ireland. I shan't stay there, you know." Then she paused a moment before she proceeded. "Shall you see--that young woman when you are there?" "I suppose I shall see her." "Pray do not think that I desire to interfere with your private affairs. I know well that I have no right to assume over you any of that affectionate authority which a mother might have,--though in truth I love you as a son." "I would treat you just as I would my own mother." "No, Fred; that cannot be so. A mother would throw her arms round you and cling to you if she saw you going into danger. A mother would follow you, hoping that she might save you." "But there is no danger." "Ah, Fred, I fear there is." "What danger?" "You are now the head of one of the oldest and the noblest families in this which in my heart I believe to be the least sinful among the sinful nations of the wicked world." "I don't quite know how that may be;--I mean about the world. Of course I understand about the family." "But you love your country?" "Oh yes. I don't think there's any place like England,--to live in." "And England is what it is because there are still some left among us who are born to high rank and who know how to live up to the standard that is required of them. If ever there was such a man, your uncle was such a one." "I'm sure he was;--just what he ought to have been." "Honourable, true, affectionate, self-denying, affable to all men, but ever conscious of his rank, giving much because much had been given to him, asserting his nobility for the benefit of those around him, proud of his order for the sake of his country, bearing his sorrows with the dignity of silence, a nobleman all over, living on to the end sans reproche! He was a man whom you may dare to imitate, though to follow him may be difficult." She spoke not loudly, but clearly, looking him full in the face as she stood motionless before him. "He was all that," said Fred, almost overpowered by the sincere solemnity of his aunt's manner. "Will you try to walk in his footsteps?" "Two men can never be like one another in that way. I shall never be what he was. But I'll endeavour to get along as well as I can." "You will remember your order?" "Yes, I will. I do remember it. Mind you, aunt, I am not glad that I belong to it. I think I do understand about it all, and will do my best. But Jack would have made a better Earl than I shall do. That's the truth." "The Lord God has placed you,--and you must pray to Him that He will enable you to do your duty in that state of life to which it has pleased Him to call you. You are here and must bear his decree; and whether it be a privilege to enjoy, you must enjoy it, or a burden to bear, you must endure it." "It is so of course." "Knowing that, you must know also how incumbent it is upon you not to defile the stock from which you are sprung." "I suppose it has been defiled," said Fred, who had been looking into the history of the family. "The ninth Earl seems to have married nobody knows whom. And his son was my uncle's grandfather." This was a blow to Lady Scroope, but she bore it with dignity and courage. "You would hardly wish it to be said that you had copied the only one of your ancestors who did amiss. The world was rougher then than it is now, and he of whom you speak was a soldier." "I'm a soldier too," said the Earl. "Oh, Fred, is it thus you answer me! He was a soldier in rough times, when there were wars. I think he married when he was with the army under Marlborough." "I have not seen anything of that kind, certainly." "Your country is at peace, and your place is here, among your tenantry, at Scroope. You will promise me, Fred, that you will not marry this girl in Ireland?" "If I do, the fault will be all with that old maid at Castle Quin." "Do not say that, Fred. It is impossible. Let her conduct have been what it may, it cannot make that right in you which would have been wrong, or that wrong which would have been right." "She's a nasty meddlesome cat." "I will not talk about her. What good would it do? You cannot at any rate be surprised at my extreme anxiety. You did promise your uncle most solemnly that you would never marry this young lady." "If I did, that ought to be enough." He was now waxing angry and his face was becoming red. He would bear a good deal from his uncle's widow, but he felt his own power and was not prepared to bear much more. "Of course I cannot bind you. I know well how impotent I am,--how powerless to exercise control. But I think, Fred, that for your uncle's sake you will not refuse to repeat your promise to me, if you intend to keep it. Why is it that I am so anxious? It is for your sake, and for the sake of a name which should be dearer to you than it is even to me." "I have no intention of marrying at all." "Do not say that." "I do say it. I do not want to keep either you or Jack in the dark as to my future life. This young lady,--of whom, by the by, neither you nor Lady Mary Quin know anything, shall not become Countess of Scroope. To that I have made up my mind." "Thank God." "But as long as she lives I will make no woman Countess of Scroope. Let Jack marry this girl that he is in love with. They shall live here and have the house to themselves if they like it. He will look after the property and shall have whatever income old Mellerby thinks proper. I will keep the promise I made to my uncle,--but the keeping of it will make it impossible for me to live here. I would prefer now that you should say no more on the subject." Then he left her, quitting the room with some stateliness in his step, as though conscious that at such a moment as this it behoved him to assume his rank. The dowager sat alone all that morning thinking of the thing she had done. She did now believe that he was positively resolved not to marry Kate O'Hara, and she believed also that she herself had fixed him in that resolution. In doing so had she or had she not committed a deadly sin? She knew almost with accuracy what had occurred on the coast of Clare. A young girl, innocent herself up to that moment, had been enticed to her ruin by words of love which had been hallowed in her ears by vows of marriage. Those vows which had possessed so deadly an efficacy, were now to be simply broken! The cruelty to her would be damnable, devilish,--surely worthy of hell if any sin of man can be so called! And she, who could not divest herself of a certain pride taken in the austere morality of her own life, she who was now a widow anxious to devote her life solely to God, had persuaded the man to this sin, in order that her successor as Countess of Scroope might not be, in her opinion, unfitting for nobility! The young lord had promised her that he would be guilty of this sin, so damnable, so devilish, telling her as he did so, that as a consequence of his promise he must continue to live a life of wickedness! In the agony of her spirit she threw herself upon her knees and implored the Lord to pardon her and to guide her. But even while kneeling before the throne of heaven she could not drive the pride of birth out of her heart. That the young Earl might be saved from the damning sin and also from the polluting marriage;--that was the prayer she prayed. CHAPTER VIII. LOOSE ABOUT THE WORLD. The Countess was seen no more on that day,--was no more seen at least by either of the two brothers. Miss Mellerby was with her now and again, but on each occasion only for a few minutes, and reported that Lady Scroope was ill and could not appear at dinner. She would, however, see her nephew before he started on the following morning. Fred himself was much affected by the interview with his aunt. No doubt he had made a former promise to his uncle, similar to that which had now been exacted from him. No doubt he had himself resolved, after what he had thought to be mature consideration that he would not marry the girl, justifying to himself this decision by the deceit which he thought had been practised upon him in regard to Captain O'Hara. Nevertheless, he felt that by what had now occurred he was bound more strongly against the marriage than he had ever been bound before. His promise to his uncle might have been regarded as being obligatory only as long as his uncle lived. His own decision he would have been at liberty to change when he pleased to do so. But, though his aunt was almost nothing to him,--was not in very truth his aunt, but only the widow of his uncle, there had been a solemnity about the engagement as he had now made it with her, which he felt to be definitely binding. He must go to Ardkill prepared to tell them absolutely the truth. He would make any arrangement they pleased as to their future joint lives, so long as it was an arrangement by which Kate should not become Countess of Scroope. He did not attempt to conceal from himself the dreadful nature of the task before him. He knew what would be the indignation of the priest. He could picture to himself the ferocity of the mother, defending her young as a lioness would her whelp. He could imagine that that dagger might again be brought from its hiding place. And, worse than all, he would see the girl prostrate in her woe, and appealing to his love and to his oaths, when the truth as to her future life should be revealed to her. But yet he did not think of shunning the task before him. He could not endure to live a coward in his own esteem. He was unlike himself and very melancholy. "It has been so good of you to remain here," he said to Sophie Mellerby. They had now become intimate and almost attached to each other as friends. If she had allowed a spark of hope to become bright within her heart in regard to the young Earl that had long since been quenched. She had acknowledged to herself that had it been possible in other respects they would not have suited each other,--and now they were friends. "I love your aunt dearly and have been very glad to be with her." "I wish you would learn to love somebody else dearly." "Perhaps I shall, some day,--somebody else; though I don't at all know who it may be." "You know whom I mean." "I suppose I do." "And why not love him? Isn't he a good fellow?" "One can't love all the good fellows, Lord Scroope." "You'll never find a better one than he is." "Did he commission you to speak for him?" "You know he didn't. You know that he would be the last man in the world to do so?" "I was surprised." "But I had a reason for speaking." "No doubt." "I don't suppose it will have any effect with you;--but it is something you ought to know. If any man of my age can be supposed to have made up his mind on such a matter, you may believe that I have made up my mind that I will--never marry." "What nonsense, Lord Scroope." "Well;--yes; perhaps it is. But I am so convinced of it myself that I shall ask my brother to come and live here--permanently,--as master of the place. As he would have to leave his regiment it would of course be necessary that his position here should be settled,--and it shall be settled." "I most sincerely hope that you will always live here yourself." "It won't suit me. Circumstances have made it impossible. If he will not do so, nor my aunt, the house must be shut up. I am most anxious that this should not be done. I shall implore him to remain here, and to be here exactly as I should have been,--had things with me not have been so very unfortunate. He will at any rate have a house to offer you, if--" "Lord Scroope!" "I know what you are going to say, Sophie." "I don't know that I am as yet disposed to marry for the sake of a house to shelter me." "Of course you would say that; but still I think that I have been right to tell you. I am sure you will believe my assurance that Jack knows nothing of all this." That same evening he said nearly the same thing to his brother, though in doing so he made no special allusion to Sophie Mellerby. "I know that there is a great deal that a fellow should do, living in such a house as this, but I am not the man to do it. It's a very good kind of life, if you happen to be up to it. I am not, but you are." "My dear Fred, you can't change the accidents of birth." "In a great measure I can; or at least we can do so between us. You can't be Lord Scroope, but you can be master of Scroope Manor." "No I can't;--and, which is more, I won't. Don't think I am uncivil." "You are uncivil, Jack." "At any rate I am not ungrateful. I only want you to understand thoroughly that such an arrangement is out of the question. In no condition of life would I care to be the locum tenens for another man. You are now five or six and twenty. At thirty you may be a married man with an absolute need for your own house." "I would execute any deed." "So that I might be enabled to keep the owner of the property out of the only place that is fit for him! It is a power which I should not use, and do not wish to possess. Believe me, Fred, that a man is bound to submit himself to the circumstances by which he is surrounded, when it is clear that they are beneficial to the world at large. There must be an Earl of Scroope, and you at present are the man." They were sitting together out upon the terrace after dinner, and for a time there was silence. His brother's arguments were too strong for the young lord, and it was out of his power to deal with one so dogmatic. But he did not forget the last words that had been spoken. It may be that "I shall not be the man very long," he said at last. "Any of us may die to-day or to-morrow," said Jack. "I have a kind of presentiment,--not that I shall die, but that I shall never see Scroope again. It seems as though I were certainly leaving for ever a place that has always been distasteful to me." "I never believe anything of presentiments." "No; of course not. You're not that sort of fellow at all. But I am. I can't think of myself as living here with a dozen old fogies about the place all doing nothing, touching their hats, my-lording me at every turn, looking respectable, but as idle as pickpockets." "You'll have to do it." "Perhaps I shall, but I don't think it." Then there was again silence for a time. "The less said about it the better, but I know that I've got a very difficult job before me in Ireland." "I don't envy you, Fred;--not that." "It is no use talking about it. It has got to be done, and the sooner done the better. What I shall do when it is done, I have not the most remote idea. Where I shall be living this day month I cannot guess. I can only say one thing certainly, and that is that I shall not come back here. There never was a fellow so loose about the world as I am." It was terrible that a young man who had it in his power to do so much good or so much evil should have had nothing to bind him to the better course! There was the motto of his house, and the promises which he had made to his uncle persuading him to that which was respectable and as he thought dull; and opposed to those influences there was an unconquerable feeling on his own part that he was altogether unfitted for the kind of life that was expected of him. Joined to this there was the fact of that unfortunate connection in Ireland from which he knew that it would be base to fly, and which, as it seemed to him, made any attempt at respectability impossible to him. Early on the following morning, as he was preparing to start, his aunt again sent for him. She came out to him in the sitting-room adjoining her bedroom and there embraced him. Her eyes were red with weeping, and her face wan with care. "Fred," she said; "dear Fred." "Good-bye, aunt. The last word I have to say is that I implore you not to leave Scroope as long as you are comfortable here." "You will come back?" "I cannot say anything certain about that." She still had hold of him with both hands and was looking into his face with loving, frightened, wistful eyes. "I know," she said, "that you will be thinking of what passed between us yesterday." "Certainly I shall remember it." "I have been praying for you, Fred; and now I tell you to look to your Father which is in Heaven for guidance, and not to take it from any poor frail sinful human being. Ask Him to keep your feet steady in the path, and your heart pure, and your thoughts free from wickedness. Oh, Fred, keep your mind and body clear before Him, and if you will kneel to Him for protection, He will show you a way through all difficulties." It was thus that she intended to tell him that his promise to her, made on the previous day, was to count for nought, and that he was to marry the girl if by no other way he could release himself from vice. But she could not bring herself to declare to him in plain terms that he had better marry Kate O'Hara, and bring his new Countess to Scroope in order that she might be fitly received by her predecessor. It might be that the Lord would still show him a way out of the two evils. But his brother was more clear of purpose with him, as they walked together out to the yard in which the young Earl was to get into his carriage. "Upon the whole, Fred, if I were you I should marry that girl." This he said quite abruptly. The young lord shook his head. "It may be that I do not know all the circumstances. If they be as I have heard them from you, I should marry her. Good-bye. Let me hear from you, when you have settled as to going anywhere." "I shall be sure to write," said Fred as he took the reins and seated him in the phaeton. His brother's advice he understood plainly, and that of his aunt he thought that he understood. But he shook his head again as he told himself that he could not now be guided by either of them. CHAPTER IX. AT LISCANNOR. The young lord slept one night at Ennis, and on the third morning after his departure from Scroope, started in his gig for Liscannor and the cliffs of Moher. He took a servant with him and a change of clothes. And as he went his heart was very heavy. He could not live a coward in his own esteem. Were it not so how willingly would he have saved himself from the misery of this journey, and have sent to his Kate to bid her come to him in England! He feared the priest, and he feared his Kate's mother;--not her dagger, but her eyes and scorching words. He altogether doubted his own powers to perform satisfactorily the task before him. He knew men who could do it. His brother Jack would do it, were it possible that his brother Jack should be in such a position. But for himself, he was conscious of a softness of heart, a feminine tenderness, which,--to do him justice,--he did not mistake for sincerity, that rendered him unfit for the task before him. The farther he journeyed from Scroope and the nearer that he found himself to the cliffs the stronger did the feeling grow within him, till it had become almost

among

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

women,--who in all other views of life are perhaps tender and soft-natured,--is one of the marvels of our social system. It is as though a certain line were drawn to include all women,--a line, but, alas, little more than a line,--by overstepping which, or rather by being known to have overstepped it, a woman ceases to be a woman in the estimation of her own sex. That the existence of this feeling has strong effect in saving women from passing the line, none of us can doubt. That its general tendency may be good rather than evil, is possible. But the hardness necessary to preserve the rule, a hardness which must be exclusively feminine but which is seldom wanting, is a marvellous feature in the female character. Lady Mary Quin probably thought but little on the subject. The women in the cottage on the cliff, who were befriended by Father Marty, were to her dangerous scheming Roman Catholic adventurers. The proper triumph of Protestant virtue required that they should fail in their adventures. She had always known that there would be something disreputable heard of them sooner or later. When the wretched Captain came into the neighbourhood,--and she soon heard of his coming,--she was gratified by feeling that her convictions had been correct. When the sad tidings as to poor Kate reached her ears, she had "known that it would be so." That such a girl should be made Countess of Scroope in reward for her wickedness would be to her an event horrible, almost contrary to Divine Providence,--a testimony that the Evil One was being allowed peculiar power at the moment, and would no doubt have been used in her own circles to show the ruin that had been brought upon the country by Catholic emancipation. She did not for a moment doubt that the present Earl should be encouraged to break any promises of marriage to the making of which he might have been allured. But it was not so with Lady Scroope. She, indeed, came to the same conclusion as her friend, but she did so with much difficulty and after many inward struggles. She understood and valued the customs of the magic line. In her heart of hearts she approved of a different code of morals for men and women. That which merited instant, and as regarded this world, perpetual condemnation in a woman, might in a man be very easily forgiven. A sigh, a shake of the head, and some small innocent stratagem that might lead to a happy marriage and settlement in life with increased income, would have been her treatment of such sin for the heirs of the great and wealthy. She knew that the world could not afford to ostracise the men,--though happily it might condemn the women. Nevertheless, when she came to the single separated instance, though her heart melted with no ruth for the woman,--in such cases the woman must be seen before the ruth is felt,--though pity for Kate O'Hara did not influence her, she did acknowledge the sanctity of a gentleman's word. If, as Lady Mary told her, and as she could so well believe, the present Earl of Scroope had given to this girl a promise that he would marry her, if he had bound himself by his pledged word, as a nobleman and a gentleman, how could she bid him become a perjured knave? Sans reproche! Was he thus to begin to live and to deserve the motto of his house by the conduct of his life? But then the evil that would be done was so great! She did not for a moment doubt all that Lady Mary told her about the girl. The worst of it had indeed been admitted. She was a Roman Catholic, ill-born, ill-connected, damaged utterly by a parent so low that nothing lower could possibly be raked out of the world's gutters. And now the girl herself was--a castaway. Such a marriage as that of which Lady Mary spoke would not only injure the house of Scroope for the present generation, but would tend to its final downfall. Would it not be known throughout all England that the next Earl of Scroope would be the grandson of a convict? Might there not be questions as to the legitimacy of the assumed heir? She herself knew of noble families which had been scattered, confounded, and almost ruined by such imprudence. Hitherto the family of Scroope had been continued from generation to generation without stain,--almost without stain. It had felt it to be a fortunate thing that the late heir had died because of the pollution of his wretched marriage. And now must evil as bad befall it, worse evil perhaps, through the folly of this young man? Must that proud motto be taken down from its place in the hall from very shame? But the evil had not been done yet, and it might be that her words could save the house from ruin and disgrace. She was a woman of whom it may be said that whatever difficulty she might have in deciding a question she could recognise the necessity of a decision and could abide by it when she had made it. It was with great difficulty that she could bring herself to think that an Earl of Scroope should be false to a promise by which he had seduced a woman, but she did succeed in bringing herself to such thought. Her very heart bled within her as she acknowledged the necessity. A lie to her was abominable. A lie, to be told by herself, would have been hideous to her. A lie to be told by him, was worse. As virtue, what she called virtue, was the one thing indispensable to women, so was truth the one thing indispensable to men. And yet she must tell him to lie, and having resolved so to tell him, must use all her intellect to defend the lie,--and to insist upon it. He was determined to return to Ireland, and there was nothing that she could do to prevent his return. She could not bid him shun a danger simply because it was a danger. He was his own master, and were she to do so he would only laugh at her. Of authority with him she had none. If she spoke, he must listen. Her position would secure so much to her from courtesy,--and were she to speak of the duty which he owed to his name and to the family he could hardly laugh. She therefore sent to him a message. Would he kindly go to her in her own room? Of course he attended to her wishes and went. "You mean to leave us to-morrow, Fred," she said. We all know the peculiar solemnity of a widow's dress,--the look of self-sacrifice on the part of the woman which the dress creates; and have perhaps recognised the fact that if the woman be deterred by no necessities of oeconomy in her toilet,--as in such material circumstances the splendour is more perfect if splendour be the object,--so also is the self-sacrifice more abject. And with this widow an appearance of melancholy solemnity, almost of woe, was natural to her. She was one whose life had ever been serious, solemn, and sad. Wealth and the outward pomp of circumstances had conferred upon her a certain dignity; and with that doubtless there had reached her some feeling of satisfaction. Religion too had given her comfort, and a routine of small duties had saved her from the wretchedness of ennui. But life with her had had no laughter, and had seldom smiled. Now in the first days of her widowhood she regarded her course as run, and looked upon herself as one who, in speaking, almost spoke from the tomb. All this had its effect upon the young lord. She did inspire him with a certain awe; and though her weeds gave her no authority, they did give her weight. "Yes; I shall start to-morrow," he replied. "And you still mean to go to Ireland?" "Yes;--I must go to Ireland. I shan't stay there, you know." Then she paused a moment before she proceeded. "Shall you see--that young woman when you are there?" "I suppose I shall see her." "Pray do not think that I desire to interfere with your private affairs. I know well that I have no right to assume over you any of that affectionate authority which a mother might have,--though in truth I love you as a son." "I would treat you just as I would my own mother." "No, Fred; that cannot be so. A mother would throw her arms round you and cling to you if she saw you going into danger. A mother would follow you, hoping that she might save you." "But there is no danger." "Ah, Fred, I fear there is." "What danger?" "You are now the head of one of the oldest and the noblest families in this which in my heart I believe to be the least sinful among the sinful nations of the wicked world." "I don't quite know how that may be;--I mean about the world. Of course I understand about the family." "But you love your country?" "Oh yes. I don't think there's any place like England,--to live in." "And England is what it is because there are still some left among us who are born to high rank and who know how to live up to the standard that is required of them. If ever there was such a man, your uncle was such a one." "I'm sure he was;--just what he ought to have been." "Honourable, true, affectionate, self-denying, affable to all men, but ever conscious of his rank, giving much because much had been given to him, asserting his nobility for the benefit of those around him, proud of his order for the sake of his country, bearing his sorrows with the dignity of silence, a nobleman all over, living on to the end sans reproche! He was a man whom you may dare to imitate, though to follow him may be difficult." She spoke not loudly, but clearly, looking him full in the face as she stood motionless before him. "He was all that," said Fred, almost overpowered by the sincere solemnity of his aunt's manner. "Will you try to walk in his footsteps?" "Two men can never be like one another in that way. I shall never be what he was. But I'll endeavour to get along as well as I can." "You will remember your order?" "Yes, I will. I do remember it. Mind you, aunt, I am not glad that I belong to it. I think I do understand about it all, and will do my best. But Jack would have made a better Earl than I shall do. That's the truth." "The Lord God has placed you,--and you must pray to Him that He will enable you to do your duty in that state of life to which it has pleased Him to call you. You are here and must bear his decree; and whether it be a privilege to enjoy, you must enjoy it, or a burden to bear, you must endure it." "It is so of course." "Knowing that, you must know also how incumbent it is upon you not to defile the stock from which you are sprung." "I suppose it has been defiled," said Fred, who had been looking into the history of the family. "The ninth Earl seems to have married nobody knows whom. And his son was my uncle's grandfather." This was a blow to Lady Scroope, but she bore it with dignity and courage. "You would hardly wish it to be said that you had copied the only one of your ancestors who did amiss. The world was rougher then than it is now, and he of whom you speak was a soldier." "I'm a soldier too," said the Earl. "Oh, Fred, is it thus you answer me! He was a soldier in rough times, when there were wars. I think he married when he was with the army under Marlborough." "I have not seen anything of that kind, certainly." "Your country is at peace, and your place is here, among your tenantry, at Scroope. You will promise me, Fred, that you will not marry this girl in Ireland?" "If I do, the fault will be all with that old maid at Castle Quin." "Do not say that, Fred. It is impossible. Let her conduct have been what it may, it cannot make that right in you which would have been wrong, or that wrong which would have been right." "She's a nasty meddlesome cat." "I will not talk about her. What good would it do? You cannot at any rate be surprised at my extreme anxiety. You did promise your uncle most solemnly that you would never marry this young lady." "If I did, that ought to be enough." He was now waxing angry and his face was becoming red. He would bear a good deal from his uncle's widow, but he felt his own power and was not prepared to bear much more. "Of course I cannot bind you. I know well how impotent I am,--how powerless to exercise control. But I think, Fred, that for your uncle's sake you will not refuse to repeat your promise to me, if you intend to keep it. Why is it that I am so anxious? It is for your sake, and for the sake of a name which should be dearer to you than it is even to me." "I have no intention of marrying at all." "Do not say that." "I do say it. I do not want to keep either you or Jack in the dark as to my future life. This young lady,--of whom, by the by, neither you nor Lady Mary Quin know anything, shall not become Countess of Scroope. To that I have made up my mind." "Thank God." "But as long as she lives I will make no woman Countess of Scroope. Let Jack marry this girl that he is in love with. They shall live here and have the house to themselves if they like it. He will look after the property and shall have whatever income old Mellerby thinks proper. I will keep the promise I made to my uncle,--but the keeping of it will make it impossible for me to live here. I would prefer now that you should say no more on the subject." Then he left her, quitting the room with some stateliness in his step, as though conscious that at such a moment as this it behoved him to assume his rank. The dowager sat alone all that morning thinking of the thing she had done. She did now believe that he was positively resolved not to marry Kate O'Hara, and she believed also that she herself had fixed him in that resolution. In doing so had she or had she not committed a deadly sin? She knew almost with accuracy what had occurred on the coast of Clare. A young girl, innocent herself up to that moment, had been enticed to her ruin by words of love which had been hallowed in her ears by vows of marriage. Those vows which had possessed so deadly an efficacy, were now to be simply broken! The cruelty to her would be damnable, devilish,--surely worthy of hell if any sin of man can be so called! And she, who could not divest herself of a certain pride taken in the austere morality of her own life, she who was now a widow anxious to devote her life solely to God, had persuaded the man to this sin, in order that her successor as Countess of Scroope might not be, in her opinion, unfitting for nobility! The young lord had promised her that he would be guilty of this sin, so damnable, so devilish, telling her as he did so, that as a consequence of his promise he must continue to live a life of wickedness! In the agony of her spirit she threw herself upon her knees and implored the Lord to pardon her and to guide her. But even while kneeling before the throne of heaven she could not drive the pride of birth out of her heart. That the young Earl might be saved from the damning sin and also from the polluting marriage;--that was the prayer she prayed. CHAPTER VIII. LOOSE ABOUT THE WORLD. The Countess was seen no more on that day,--was no more seen at least by either of the two brothers. Miss Mellerby was with her now and again, but on each occasion only for a few minutes, and reported that Lady Scroope was ill and could not appear at dinner. She would, however, see her nephew before he started on the following morning. Fred himself was much affected by the interview with his aunt. No doubt he had made a former promise to his uncle, similar to that which had now been exacted from him. No doubt he had himself resolved, after what he had thought to be mature consideration that he would not marry the girl, justifying to himself this decision by the deceit which he thought had been practised upon him in regard to Captain O'Hara. Nevertheless, he felt that by what had now occurred he was bound more strongly against the marriage than he had ever been bound before. His promise to his uncle might have been regarded as being obligatory only as long as his uncle lived. His own decision he would have been at liberty to change when he pleased to do so. But, though his aunt was almost nothing to him,--was not in very truth his aunt, but only the widow of his uncle, there had been a solemnity about the engagement as he had now made it with her, which he felt to be definitely binding. He must go to Ardkill prepared to tell them absolutely the truth. He would make any arrangement they pleased as to their future joint lives, so long as it was an arrangement by which Kate should not become Countess of Scroope. He did not attempt to conceal from himself the dreadful nature of the task before him. He knew what would be the indignation of the priest. He could picture to himself the ferocity of the mother, defending her young as a lioness would her whelp. He could imagine that that dagger might again be brought from its hiding place. And, worse than all, he would see the girl prostrate in her woe, and appealing to his love and to his oaths, when the truth as to her future life should be revealed to her. But yet he did not think of shunning the task before him. He could not endure to live a coward in his own esteem. He was unlike himself and very melancholy. "It has been so good of you to remain here," he said to Sophie Mellerby. They had now become intimate and almost attached to each other as friends. If she had allowed a spark of hope to become bright within her heart in regard to the young Earl that had long since been quenched. She had acknowledged to herself that had it been possible in other respects they would not have suited each other,--and now they were friends. "I love your aunt dearly and have been very glad to be with her." "I wish you would learn to love somebody else dearly." "Perhaps I shall, some day,--somebody else; though I don't at all know who it may be." "You know whom I mean." "I suppose I do." "And why not love him? Isn't he a good fellow?" "One can't love all the good fellows, Lord Scroope." "You'll never find a better one than he is." "Did he commission you to speak for him?" "You know he didn't. You know that he would be the last man in the world to do so?" "I was surprised." "But I had a reason for speaking." "No doubt." "I don't suppose it will have any effect with you;--but it is something you ought to know. If any man of my age can be supposed to have made up his mind on such a matter, you may believe that I have made up my mind that I will--never marry." "What nonsense, Lord Scroope." "Well;--yes; perhaps it is. But I am so convinced of it myself that I shall ask my brother to come and live here--permanently,--as master of the place. As he would have to leave his regiment it would of course be necessary that his position here should be settled,--and it shall be settled." "I most sincerely hope that you will always live here yourself." "It won't suit me. Circumstances have made it impossible. If he will not do so, nor my aunt, the house must be shut up. I am most anxious that this should not be done. I shall implore him to remain here, and to be here exactly as I should have been,--had things with me not have been so very unfortunate. He will at any rate have a house to offer you, if--" "Lord Scroope!" "I know what you are going to say, Sophie." "I don't know that I am as yet disposed to marry for the sake of a house to shelter me." "Of course you would say that; but still I think that I have been right to tell you. I am sure you will believe my assurance that Jack knows nothing of all this." That same evening he said nearly the same thing to his brother, though in doing so he made no special allusion to Sophie Mellerby. "I know that there is a great deal that a fellow should do, living in such a house as this, but I am not the man to do it. It's a very good kind of life, if you happen to be up to it. I am not, but you are." "My dear Fred, you can't change the accidents of birth." "In a great measure I can; or at least we can do so between us. You can't be Lord Scroope, but you can be master of Scroope Manor." "No I can't;--and, which is more, I won't. Don't think I am uncivil." "You are uncivil, Jack." "At any rate I am not ungrateful. I only want you to understand thoroughly that such an arrangement is out of the question. In no condition of life would I care to be the locum tenens for another man. You are now five or six and twenty. At thirty you may be a married man with an absolute need for your own house." "I would execute any deed." "So that I might be enabled to keep the owner of the property out of the only place that is fit for him! It is a power which I should not use, and do not wish to possess. Believe me, Fred, that a man is bound to submit himself to the circumstances by which he is surrounded, when it is clear that they are beneficial to the world at large. There must be an Earl of Scroope, and you at present are the man." They were sitting together out upon the terrace after dinner, and for a time there was silence. His brother's arguments were too strong for the young lord, and it was out of his power to deal with one so dogmatic. But he did not forget the last words that had been spoken. It may be that "I shall not be the man very long," he said at last. "Any of us may die to-day or to-morrow," said Jack. "I have a kind of presentiment,--not that I shall die, but that I shall never see Scroope again. It seems as though I were certainly leaving for ever a place that has always been distasteful to me." "I never believe anything of presentiments." "No; of course not. You're not that sort of fellow at all. But I am. I can't think of myself as living here with a dozen old fogies about the place all doing nothing, touching their hats, my-lording me at every turn, looking respectable, but as idle as pickpockets." "You'll have to do it." "Perhaps I shall, but I don't think it." Then there was again silence for a time. "The less said about it the better, but I know that I've got a very difficult job before me in Ireland." "I don't envy you, Fred;--not that." "It is no use talking about it. It has got to be done, and the sooner done the better. What I shall do when it is done, I have not the most remote idea. Where I shall be living this day month I cannot guess. I can only say one thing certainly, and that is that I shall not come back here. There never was a fellow so loose about the world as I am." It was terrible that a young man who had it in his power to do so much good or so much evil should have had nothing to bind him to the better course! There was the motto of his house, and the promises which he had made to his uncle persuading him to that which was respectable and as he thought dull; and opposed to those influences there was an unconquerable feeling on his own part that he was altogether unfitted for the kind of life that was expected of him. Joined to this there was the fact of that unfortunate connection in Ireland from which he knew that it would be base to fly, and which, as it seemed to him, made any attempt at respectability impossible to him. Early on the following morning, as he was preparing to start, his aunt again sent for him. She came out to him in the sitting-room adjoining her bedroom and there embraced him. Her eyes were red with weeping, and her face wan with care. "Fred," she said; "dear Fred." "Good-bye, aunt. The last word I have to say is that I implore you not to leave Scroope as long as you are comfortable here." "You will come back?" "I cannot say anything certain about that." She still had hold of him with both hands and was looking into his face with loving, frightened, wistful eyes. "I know," she said, "that you will be thinking of what passed between us yesterday." "Certainly I shall remember it." "I have been praying for you, Fred; and now I tell you to look to your Father which is in Heaven for guidance, and not to take it from any poor frail sinful human being. Ask Him to keep your feet steady in the path, and your heart pure, and your thoughts free from wickedness. Oh, Fred, keep your mind and body clear before Him, and if you will kneel to Him for protection, He will show you a way through all difficulties." It was thus that she intended to tell him that his promise to her, made on the previous day, was to count for nought, and that he was to marry the girl if by no other way he could release himself from vice. But she could not bring herself to declare to him in plain terms that he had better marry Kate O'Hara, and bring his new Countess to Scroope in order that she might be fitly received by her predecessor. It might be that the Lord would still show him a way out of the two evils. But his brother was more clear of purpose with him, as they walked together out to the yard in which the young Earl was to get into his carriage. "Upon the whole, Fred, if I were you I should marry that girl." This he said quite abruptly. The young lord shook his head. "It may be that I do not know all the circumstances. If they be as I have heard them from you, I should marry her. Good-bye. Let me hear from you, when you have settled as to going anywhere." "I shall be sure to write," said Fred as he took the reins and seated him in the phaeton. His brother's advice he understood plainly, and that of his aunt he thought that he understood. But he shook his head again as he told himself that he could not now be guided by either of them. CHAPTER IX. AT LISCANNOR. The young lord slept one night at Ennis, and on the third morning after his departure from Scroope, started in his gig for Liscannor and the cliffs of Moher. He took a servant with him and a change of clothes. And as he went his heart was very heavy. He could not live a coward in his own esteem. Were it not so how willingly would he have saved himself from the misery of this journey, and have sent to his Kate to bid her come to him in England! He feared the priest, and he feared his Kate's mother;--not her dagger, but her eyes and scorching words. He altogether doubted his own powers to perform satisfactorily the task before him. He knew men who could do it. His brother Jack would do it, were it possible that his brother Jack should be in such a position. But for himself, he was conscious of a softness of heart, a feminine tenderness, which,--to do him justice,--he did not mistake for sincerity, that rendered him unfit for the task before him. The farther he journeyed from Scroope and the nearer that he found himself to the cliffs the stronger did the feeling grow within him, till it had become almost

generation

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

women,--who in all other views of life are perhaps tender and soft-natured,--is one of the marvels of our social system. It is as though a certain line were drawn to include all women,--a line, but, alas, little more than a line,--by overstepping which, or rather by being known to have overstepped it, a woman ceases to be a woman in the estimation of her own sex. That the existence of this feeling has strong effect in saving women from passing the line, none of us can doubt. That its general tendency may be good rather than evil, is possible. But the hardness necessary to preserve the rule, a hardness which must be exclusively feminine but which is seldom wanting, is a marvellous feature in the female character. Lady Mary Quin probably thought but little on the subject. The women in the cottage on the cliff, who were befriended by Father Marty, were to her dangerous scheming Roman Catholic adventurers. The proper triumph of Protestant virtue required that they should fail in their adventures. She had always known that there would be something disreputable heard of them sooner or later. When the wretched Captain came into the neighbourhood,--and she soon heard of his coming,--she was gratified by feeling that her convictions had been correct. When the sad tidings as to poor Kate reached her ears, she had "known that it would be so." That such a girl should be made Countess of Scroope in reward for her wickedness would be to her an event horrible, almost contrary to Divine Providence,--a testimony that the Evil One was being allowed peculiar power at the moment, and would no doubt have been used in her own circles to show the ruin that had been brought upon the country by Catholic emancipation. She did not for a moment doubt that the present Earl should be encouraged to break any promises of marriage to the making of which he might have been allured. But it was not so with Lady Scroope. She, indeed, came to the same conclusion as her friend, but she did so with much difficulty and after many inward struggles. She understood and valued the customs of the magic line. In her heart of hearts she approved of a different code of morals for men and women. That which merited instant, and as regarded this world, perpetual condemnation in a woman, might in a man be very easily forgiven. A sigh, a shake of the head, and some small innocent stratagem that might lead to a happy marriage and settlement in life with increased income, would have been her treatment of such sin for the heirs of the great and wealthy. She knew that the world could not afford to ostracise the men,--though happily it might condemn the women. Nevertheless, when she came to the single separated instance, though her heart melted with no ruth for the woman,--in such cases the woman must be seen before the ruth is felt,--though pity for Kate O'Hara did not influence her, she did acknowledge the sanctity of a gentleman's word. If, as Lady Mary told her, and as she could so well believe, the present Earl of Scroope had given to this girl a promise that he would marry her, if he had bound himself by his pledged word, as a nobleman and a gentleman, how could she bid him become a perjured knave? Sans reproche! Was he thus to begin to live and to deserve the motto of his house by the conduct of his life? But then the evil that would be done was so great! She did not for a moment doubt all that Lady Mary told her about the girl. The worst of it had indeed been admitted. She was a Roman Catholic, ill-born, ill-connected, damaged utterly by a parent so low that nothing lower could possibly be raked out of the world's gutters. And now the girl herself was--a castaway. Such a marriage as that of which Lady Mary spoke would not only injure the house of Scroope for the present generation, but would tend to its final downfall. Would it not be known throughout all England that the next Earl of Scroope would be the grandson of a convict? Might there not be questions as to the legitimacy of the assumed heir? She herself knew of noble families which had been scattered, confounded, and almost ruined by such imprudence. Hitherto the family of Scroope had been continued from generation to generation without stain,--almost without stain. It had felt it to be a fortunate thing that the late heir had died because of the pollution of his wretched marriage. And now must evil as bad befall it, worse evil perhaps, through the folly of this young man? Must that proud motto be taken down from its place in the hall from very shame? But the evil had not been done yet, and it might be that her words could save the house from ruin and disgrace. She was a woman of whom it may be said that whatever difficulty she might have in deciding a question she could recognise the necessity of a decision and could abide by it when she had made it. It was with great difficulty that she could bring herself to think that an Earl of Scroope should be false to a promise by which he had seduced a woman, but she did succeed in bringing herself to such thought. Her very heart bled within her as she acknowledged the necessity. A lie to her was abominable. A lie, to be told by herself, would have been hideous to her. A lie to be told by him, was worse. As virtue, what she called virtue, was the one thing indispensable to women, so was truth the one thing indispensable to men. And yet she must tell him to lie, and having resolved so to tell him, must use all her intellect to defend the lie,--and to insist upon it. He was determined to return to Ireland, and there was nothing that she could do to prevent his return. She could not bid him shun a danger simply because it was a danger. He was his own master, and were she to do so he would only laugh at her. Of authority with him she had none. If she spoke, he must listen. Her position would secure so much to her from courtesy,--and were she to speak of the duty which he owed to his name and to the family he could hardly laugh. She therefore sent to him a message. Would he kindly go to her in her own room? Of course he attended to her wishes and went. "You mean to leave us to-morrow, Fred," she said. We all know the peculiar solemnity of a widow's dress,--the look of self-sacrifice on the part of the woman which the dress creates; and have perhaps recognised the fact that if the woman be deterred by no necessities of oeconomy in her toilet,--as in such material circumstances the splendour is more perfect if splendour be the object,--so also is the self-sacrifice more abject. And with this widow an appearance of melancholy solemnity, almost of woe, was natural to her. She was one whose life had ever been serious, solemn, and sad. Wealth and the outward pomp of circumstances had conferred upon her a certain dignity; and with that doubtless there had reached her some feeling of satisfaction. Religion too had given her comfort, and a routine of small duties had saved her from the wretchedness of ennui. But life with her had had no laughter, and had seldom smiled. Now in the first days of her widowhood she regarded her course as run, and looked upon herself as one who, in speaking, almost spoke from the tomb. All this had its effect upon the young lord. She did inspire him with a certain awe; and though her weeds gave her no authority, they did give her weight. "Yes; I shall start to-morrow," he replied. "And you still mean to go to Ireland?" "Yes;--I must go to Ireland. I shan't stay there, you know." Then she paused a moment before she proceeded. "Shall you see--that young woman when you are there?" "I suppose I shall see her." "Pray do not think that I desire to interfere with your private affairs. I know well that I have no right to assume over you any of that affectionate authority which a mother might have,--though in truth I love you as a son." "I would treat you just as I would my own mother." "No, Fred; that cannot be so. A mother would throw her arms round you and cling to you if she saw you going into danger. A mother would follow you, hoping that she might save you." "But there is no danger." "Ah, Fred, I fear there is." "What danger?" "You are now the head of one of the oldest and the noblest families in this which in my heart I believe to be the least sinful among the sinful nations of the wicked world." "I don't quite know how that may be;--I mean about the world. Of course I understand about the family." "But you love your country?" "Oh yes. I don't think there's any place like England,--to live in." "And England is what it is because there are still some left among us who are born to high rank and who know how to live up to the standard that is required of them. If ever there was such a man, your uncle was such a one." "I'm sure he was;--just what he ought to have been." "Honourable, true, affectionate, self-denying, affable to all men, but ever conscious of his rank, giving much because much had been given to him, asserting his nobility for the benefit of those around him, proud of his order for the sake of his country, bearing his sorrows with the dignity of silence, a nobleman all over, living on to the end sans reproche! He was a man whom you may dare to imitate, though to follow him may be difficult." She spoke not loudly, but clearly, looking him full in the face as she stood motionless before him. "He was all that," said Fred, almost overpowered by the sincere solemnity of his aunt's manner. "Will you try to walk in his footsteps?" "Two men can never be like one another in that way. I shall never be what he was. But I'll endeavour to get along as well as I can." "You will remember your order?" "Yes, I will. I do remember it. Mind you, aunt, I am not glad that I belong to it. I think I do understand about it all, and will do my best. But Jack would have made a better Earl than I shall do. That's the truth." "The Lord God has placed you,--and you must pray to Him that He will enable you to do your duty in that state of life to which it has pleased Him to call you. You are here and must bear his decree; and whether it be a privilege to enjoy, you must enjoy it, or a burden to bear, you must endure it." "It is so of course." "Knowing that, you must know also how incumbent it is upon you not to defile the stock from which you are sprung." "I suppose it has been defiled," said Fred, who had been looking into the history of the family. "The ninth Earl seems to have married nobody knows whom. And his son was my uncle's grandfather." This was a blow to Lady Scroope, but she bore it with dignity and courage. "You would hardly wish it to be said that you had copied the only one of your ancestors who did amiss. The world was rougher then than it is now, and he of whom you speak was a soldier." "I'm a soldier too," said the Earl. "Oh, Fred, is it thus you answer me! He was a soldier in rough times, when there were wars. I think he married when he was with the army under Marlborough." "I have not seen anything of that kind, certainly." "Your country is at peace, and your place is here, among your tenantry, at Scroope. You will promise me, Fred, that you will not marry this girl in Ireland?" "If I do, the fault will be all with that old maid at Castle Quin." "Do not say that, Fred. It is impossible. Let her conduct have been what it may, it cannot make that right in you which would have been wrong, or that wrong which would have been right." "She's a nasty meddlesome cat." "I will not talk about her. What good would it do? You cannot at any rate be surprised at my extreme anxiety. You did promise your uncle most solemnly that you would never marry this young lady." "If I did, that ought to be enough." He was now waxing angry and his face was becoming red. He would bear a good deal from his uncle's widow, but he felt his own power and was not prepared to bear much more. "Of course I cannot bind you. I know well how impotent I am,--how powerless to exercise control. But I think, Fred, that for your uncle's sake you will not refuse to repeat your promise to me, if you intend to keep it. Why is it that I am so anxious? It is for your sake, and for the sake of a name which should be dearer to you than it is even to me." "I have no intention of marrying at all." "Do not say that." "I do say it. I do not want to keep either you or Jack in the dark as to my future life. This young lady,--of whom, by the by, neither you nor Lady Mary Quin know anything, shall not become Countess of Scroope. To that I have made up my mind." "Thank God." "But as long as she lives I will make no woman Countess of Scroope. Let Jack marry this girl that he is in love with. They shall live here and have the house to themselves if they like it. He will look after the property and shall have whatever income old Mellerby thinks proper. I will keep the promise I made to my uncle,--but the keeping of it will make it impossible for me to live here. I would prefer now that you should say no more on the subject." Then he left her, quitting the room with some stateliness in his step, as though conscious that at such a moment as this it behoved him to assume his rank. The dowager sat alone all that morning thinking of the thing she had done. She did now believe that he was positively resolved not to marry Kate O'Hara, and she believed also that she herself had fixed him in that resolution. In doing so had she or had she not committed a deadly sin? She knew almost with accuracy what had occurred on the coast of Clare. A young girl, innocent herself up to that moment, had been enticed to her ruin by words of love which had been hallowed in her ears by vows of marriage. Those vows which had possessed so deadly an efficacy, were now to be simply broken! The cruelty to her would be damnable, devilish,--surely worthy of hell if any sin of man can be so called! And she, who could not divest herself of a certain pride taken in the austere morality of her own life, she who was now a widow anxious to devote her life solely to God, had persuaded the man to this sin, in order that her successor as Countess of Scroope might not be, in her opinion, unfitting for nobility! The young lord had promised her that he would be guilty of this sin, so damnable, so devilish, telling her as he did so, that as a consequence of his promise he must continue to live a life of wickedness! In the agony of her spirit she threw herself upon her knees and implored the Lord to pardon her and to guide her. But even while kneeling before the throne of heaven she could not drive the pride of birth out of her heart. That the young Earl might be saved from the damning sin and also from the polluting marriage;--that was the prayer she prayed. CHAPTER VIII. LOOSE ABOUT THE WORLD. The Countess was seen no more on that day,--was no more seen at least by either of the two brothers. Miss Mellerby was with her now and again, but on each occasion only for a few minutes, and reported that Lady Scroope was ill and could not appear at dinner. She would, however, see her nephew before he started on the following morning. Fred himself was much affected by the interview with his aunt. No doubt he had made a former promise to his uncle, similar to that which had now been exacted from him. No doubt he had himself resolved, after what he had thought to be mature consideration that he would not marry the girl, justifying to himself this decision by the deceit which he thought had been practised upon him in regard to Captain O'Hara. Nevertheless, he felt that by what had now occurred he was bound more strongly against the marriage than he had ever been bound before. His promise to his uncle might have been regarded as being obligatory only as long as his uncle lived. His own decision he would have been at liberty to change when he pleased to do so. But, though his aunt was almost nothing to him,--was not in very truth his aunt, but only the widow of his uncle, there had been a solemnity about the engagement as he had now made it with her, which he felt to be definitely binding. He must go to Ardkill prepared to tell them absolutely the truth. He would make any arrangement they pleased as to their future joint lives, so long as it was an arrangement by which Kate should not become Countess of Scroope. He did not attempt to conceal from himself the dreadful nature of the task before him. He knew what would be the indignation of the priest. He could picture to himself the ferocity of the mother, defending her young as a lioness would her whelp. He could imagine that that dagger might again be brought from its hiding place. And, worse than all, he would see the girl prostrate in her woe, and appealing to his love and to his oaths, when the truth as to her future life should be revealed to her. But yet he did not think of shunning the task before him. He could not endure to live a coward in his own esteem. He was unlike himself and very melancholy. "It has been so good of you to remain here," he said to Sophie Mellerby. They had now become intimate and almost attached to each other as friends. If she had allowed a spark of hope to become bright within her heart in regard to the young Earl that had long since been quenched. She had acknowledged to herself that had it been possible in other respects they would not have suited each other,--and now they were friends. "I love your aunt dearly and have been very glad to be with her." "I wish you would learn to love somebody else dearly." "Perhaps I shall, some day,--somebody else; though I don't at all know who it may be." "You know whom I mean." "I suppose I do." "And why not love him? Isn't he a good fellow?" "One can't love all the good fellows, Lord Scroope." "You'll never find a better one than he is." "Did he commission you to speak for him?" "You know he didn't. You know that he would be the last man in the world to do so?" "I was surprised." "But I had a reason for speaking." "No doubt." "I don't suppose it will have any effect with you;--but it is something you ought to know. If any man of my age can be supposed to have made up his mind on such a matter, you may believe that I have made up my mind that I will--never marry." "What nonsense, Lord Scroope." "Well;--yes; perhaps it is. But I am so convinced of it myself that I shall ask my brother to come and live here--permanently,--as master of the place. As he would have to leave his regiment it would of course be necessary that his position here should be settled,--and it shall be settled." "I most sincerely hope that you will always live here yourself." "It won't suit me. Circumstances have made it impossible. If he will not do so, nor my aunt, the house must be shut up. I am most anxious that this should not be done. I shall implore him to remain here, and to be here exactly as I should have been,--had things with me not have been so very unfortunate. He will at any rate have a house to offer you, if--" "Lord Scroope!" "I know what you are going to say, Sophie." "I don't know that I am as yet disposed to marry for the sake of a house to shelter me." "Of course you would say that; but still I think that I have been right to tell you. I am sure you will believe my assurance that Jack knows nothing of all this." That same evening he said nearly the same thing to his brother, though in doing so he made no special allusion to Sophie Mellerby. "I know that there is a great deal that a fellow should do, living in such a house as this, but I am not the man to do it. It's a very good kind of life, if you happen to be up to it. I am not, but you are." "My dear Fred, you can't change the accidents of birth." "In a great measure I can; or at least we can do so between us. You can't be Lord Scroope, but you can be master of Scroope Manor." "No I can't;--and, which is more, I won't. Don't think I am uncivil." "You are uncivil, Jack." "At any rate I am not ungrateful. I only want you to understand thoroughly that such an arrangement is out of the question. In no condition of life would I care to be the locum tenens for another man. You are now five or six and twenty. At thirty you may be a married man with an absolute need for your own house." "I would execute any deed." "So that I might be enabled to keep the owner of the property out of the only place that is fit for him! It is a power which I should not use, and do not wish to possess. Believe me, Fred, that a man is bound to submit himself to the circumstances by which he is surrounded, when it is clear that they are beneficial to the world at large. There must be an Earl of Scroope, and you at present are the man." They were sitting together out upon the terrace after dinner, and for a time there was silence. His brother's arguments were too strong for the young lord, and it was out of his power to deal with one so dogmatic. But he did not forget the last words that had been spoken. It may be that "I shall not be the man very long," he said at last. "Any of us may die to-day or to-morrow," said Jack. "I have a kind of presentiment,--not that I shall die, but that I shall never see Scroope again. It seems as though I were certainly leaving for ever a place that has always been distasteful to me." "I never believe anything of presentiments." "No; of course not. You're not that sort of fellow at all. But I am. I can't think of myself as living here with a dozen old fogies about the place all doing nothing, touching their hats, my-lording me at every turn, looking respectable, but as idle as pickpockets." "You'll have to do it." "Perhaps I shall, but I don't think it." Then there was again silence for a time. "The less said about it the better, but I know that I've got a very difficult job before me in Ireland." "I don't envy you, Fred;--not that." "It is no use talking about it. It has got to be done, and the sooner done the better. What I shall do when it is done, I have not the most remote idea. Where I shall be living this day month I cannot guess. I can only say one thing certainly, and that is that I shall not come back here. There never was a fellow so loose about the world as I am." It was terrible that a young man who had it in his power to do so much good or so much evil should have had nothing to bind him to the better course! There was the motto of his house, and the promises which he had made to his uncle persuading him to that which was respectable and as he thought dull; and opposed to those influences there was an unconquerable feeling on his own part that he was altogether unfitted for the kind of life that was expected of him. Joined to this there was the fact of that unfortunate connection in Ireland from which he knew that it would be base to fly, and which, as it seemed to him, made any attempt at respectability impossible to him. Early on the following morning, as he was preparing to start, his aunt again sent for him. She came out to him in the sitting-room adjoining her bedroom and there embraced him. Her eyes were red with weeping, and her face wan with care. "Fred," she said; "dear Fred." "Good-bye, aunt. The last word I have to say is that I implore you not to leave Scroope as long as you are comfortable here." "You will come back?" "I cannot say anything certain about that." She still had hold of him with both hands and was looking into his face with loving, frightened, wistful eyes. "I know," she said, "that you will be thinking of what passed between us yesterday." "Certainly I shall remember it." "I have been praying for you, Fred; and now I tell you to look to your Father which is in Heaven for guidance, and not to take it from any poor frail sinful human being. Ask Him to keep your feet steady in the path, and your heart pure, and your thoughts free from wickedness. Oh, Fred, keep your mind and body clear before Him, and if you will kneel to Him for protection, He will show you a way through all difficulties." It was thus that she intended to tell him that his promise to her, made on the previous day, was to count for nought, and that he was to marry the girl if by no other way he could release himself from vice. But she could not bring herself to declare to him in plain terms that he had better marry Kate O'Hara, and bring his new Countess to Scroope in order that she might be fitly received by her predecessor. It might be that the Lord would still show him a way out of the two evils. But his brother was more clear of purpose with him, as they walked together out to the yard in which the young Earl was to get into his carriage. "Upon the whole, Fred, if I were you I should marry that girl." This he said quite abruptly. The young lord shook his head. "It may be that I do not know all the circumstances. If they be as I have heard them from you, I should marry her. Good-bye. Let me hear from you, when you have settled as to going anywhere." "I shall be sure to write," said Fred as he took the reins and seated him in the phaeton. His brother's advice he understood plainly, and that of his aunt he thought that he understood. But he shook his head again as he told himself that he could not now be guided by either of them. CHAPTER IX. AT LISCANNOR. The young lord slept one night at Ennis, and on the third morning after his departure from Scroope, started in his gig for Liscannor and the cliffs of Moher. He took a servant with him and a change of clothes. And as he went his heart was very heavy. He could not live a coward in his own esteem. Were it not so how willingly would he have saved himself from the misery of this journey, and have sent to his Kate to bid her come to him in England! He feared the priest, and he feared his Kate's mother;--not her dagger, but her eyes and scorching words. He altogether doubted his own powers to perform satisfactorily the task before him. He knew men who could do it. His brother Jack would do it, were it possible that his brother Jack should be in such a position. But for himself, he was conscious of a softness of heart, a feminine tenderness, which,--to do him justice,--he did not mistake for sincerity, that rendered him unfit for the task before him. The farther he journeyed from Scroope and the nearer that he found himself to the cliffs the stronger did the feeling grow within him, till it had become almost

inward

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

women,--who in all other views of life are perhaps tender and soft-natured,--is one of the marvels of our social system. It is as though a certain line were drawn to include all women,--a line, but, alas, little more than a line,--by overstepping which, or rather by being known to have overstepped it, a woman ceases to be a woman in the estimation of her own sex. That the existence of this feeling has strong effect in saving women from passing the line, none of us can doubt. That its general tendency may be good rather than evil, is possible. But the hardness necessary to preserve the rule, a hardness which must be exclusively feminine but which is seldom wanting, is a marvellous feature in the female character. Lady Mary Quin probably thought but little on the subject. The women in the cottage on the cliff, who were befriended by Father Marty, were to her dangerous scheming Roman Catholic adventurers. The proper triumph of Protestant virtue required that they should fail in their adventures. She had always known that there would be something disreputable heard of them sooner or later. When the wretched Captain came into the neighbourhood,--and she soon heard of his coming,--she was gratified by feeling that her convictions had been correct. When the sad tidings as to poor Kate reached her ears, she had "known that it would be so." That such a girl should be made Countess of Scroope in reward for her wickedness would be to her an event horrible, almost contrary to Divine Providence,--a testimony that the Evil One was being allowed peculiar power at the moment, and would no doubt have been used in her own circles to show the ruin that had been brought upon the country by Catholic emancipation. She did not for a moment doubt that the present Earl should be encouraged to break any promises of marriage to the making of which he might have been allured. But it was not so with Lady Scroope. She, indeed, came to the same conclusion as her friend, but she did so with much difficulty and after many inward struggles. She understood and valued the customs of the magic line. In her heart of hearts she approved of a different code of morals for men and women. That which merited instant, and as regarded this world, perpetual condemnation in a woman, might in a man be very easily forgiven. A sigh, a shake of the head, and some small innocent stratagem that might lead to a happy marriage and settlement in life with increased income, would have been her treatment of such sin for the heirs of the great and wealthy. She knew that the world could not afford to ostracise the men,--though happily it might condemn the women. Nevertheless, when she came to the single separated instance, though her heart melted with no ruth for the woman,--in such cases the woman must be seen before the ruth is felt,--though pity for Kate O'Hara did not influence her, she did acknowledge the sanctity of a gentleman's word. If, as Lady Mary told her, and as she could so well believe, the present Earl of Scroope had given to this girl a promise that he would marry her, if he had bound himself by his pledged word, as a nobleman and a gentleman, how could she bid him become a perjured knave? Sans reproche! Was he thus to begin to live and to deserve the motto of his house by the conduct of his life? But then the evil that would be done was so great! She did not for a moment doubt all that Lady Mary told her about the girl. The worst of it had indeed been admitted. She was a Roman Catholic, ill-born, ill-connected, damaged utterly by a parent so low that nothing lower could possibly be raked out of the world's gutters. And now the girl herself was--a castaway. Such a marriage as that of which Lady Mary spoke would not only injure the house of Scroope for the present generation, but would tend to its final downfall. Would it not be known throughout all England that the next Earl of Scroope would be the grandson of a convict? Might there not be questions as to the legitimacy of the assumed heir? She herself knew of noble families which had been scattered, confounded, and almost ruined by such imprudence. Hitherto the family of Scroope had been continued from generation to generation without stain,--almost without stain. It had felt it to be a fortunate thing that the late heir had died because of the pollution of his wretched marriage. And now must evil as bad befall it, worse evil perhaps, through the folly of this young man? Must that proud motto be taken down from its place in the hall from very shame? But the evil had not been done yet, and it might be that her words could save the house from ruin and disgrace. She was a woman of whom it may be said that whatever difficulty she might have in deciding a question she could recognise the necessity of a decision and could abide by it when she had made it. It was with great difficulty that she could bring herself to think that an Earl of Scroope should be false to a promise by which he had seduced a woman, but she did succeed in bringing herself to such thought. Her very heart bled within her as she acknowledged the necessity. A lie to her was abominable. A lie, to be told by herself, would have been hideous to her. A lie to be told by him, was worse. As virtue, what she called virtue, was the one thing indispensable to women, so was truth the one thing indispensable to men. And yet she must tell him to lie, and having resolved so to tell him, must use all her intellect to defend the lie,--and to insist upon it. He was determined to return to Ireland, and there was nothing that she could do to prevent his return. She could not bid him shun a danger simply because it was a danger. He was his own master, and were she to do so he would only laugh at her. Of authority with him she had none. If she spoke, he must listen. Her position would secure so much to her from courtesy,--and were she to speak of the duty which he owed to his name and to the family he could hardly laugh. She therefore sent to him a message. Would he kindly go to her in her own room? Of course he attended to her wishes and went. "You mean to leave us to-morrow, Fred," she said. We all know the peculiar solemnity of a widow's dress,--the look of self-sacrifice on the part of the woman which the dress creates; and have perhaps recognised the fact that if the woman be deterred by no necessities of oeconomy in her toilet,--as in such material circumstances the splendour is more perfect if splendour be the object,--so also is the self-sacrifice more abject. And with this widow an appearance of melancholy solemnity, almost of woe, was natural to her. She was one whose life had ever been serious, solemn, and sad. Wealth and the outward pomp of circumstances had conferred upon her a certain dignity; and with that doubtless there had reached her some feeling of satisfaction. Religion too had given her comfort, and a routine of small duties had saved her from the wretchedness of ennui. But life with her had had no laughter, and had seldom smiled. Now in the first days of her widowhood she regarded her course as run, and looked upon herself as one who, in speaking, almost spoke from the tomb. All this had its effect upon the young lord. She did inspire him with a certain awe; and though her weeds gave her no authority, they did give her weight. "Yes; I shall start to-morrow," he replied. "And you still mean to go to Ireland?" "Yes;--I must go to Ireland. I shan't stay there, you know." Then she paused a moment before she proceeded. "Shall you see--that young woman when you are there?" "I suppose I shall see her." "Pray do not think that I desire to interfere with your private affairs. I know well that I have no right to assume over you any of that affectionate authority which a mother might have,--though in truth I love you as a son." "I would treat you just as I would my own mother." "No, Fred; that cannot be so. A mother would throw her arms round you and cling to you if she saw you going into danger. A mother would follow you, hoping that she might save you." "But there is no danger." "Ah, Fred, I fear there is." "What danger?" "You are now the head of one of the oldest and the noblest families in this which in my heart I believe to be the least sinful among the sinful nations of the wicked world." "I don't quite know how that may be;--I mean about the world. Of course I understand about the family." "But you love your country?" "Oh yes. I don't think there's any place like England,--to live in." "And England is what it is because there are still some left among us who are born to high rank and who know how to live up to the standard that is required of them. If ever there was such a man, your uncle was such a one." "I'm sure he was;--just what he ought to have been." "Honourable, true, affectionate, self-denying, affable to all men, but ever conscious of his rank, giving much because much had been given to him, asserting his nobility for the benefit of those around him, proud of his order for the sake of his country, bearing his sorrows with the dignity of silence, a nobleman all over, living on to the end sans reproche! He was a man whom you may dare to imitate, though to follow him may be difficult." She spoke not loudly, but clearly, looking him full in the face as she stood motionless before him. "He was all that," said Fred, almost overpowered by the sincere solemnity of his aunt's manner. "Will you try to walk in his footsteps?" "Two men can never be like one another in that way. I shall never be what he was. But I'll endeavour to get along as well as I can." "You will remember your order?" "Yes, I will. I do remember it. Mind you, aunt, I am not glad that I belong to it. I think I do understand about it all, and will do my best. But Jack would have made a better Earl than I shall do. That's the truth." "The Lord God has placed you,--and you must pray to Him that He will enable you to do your duty in that state of life to which it has pleased Him to call you. You are here and must bear his decree; and whether it be a privilege to enjoy, you must enjoy it, or a burden to bear, you must endure it." "It is so of course." "Knowing that, you must know also how incumbent it is upon you not to defile the stock from which you are sprung." "I suppose it has been defiled," said Fred, who had been looking into the history of the family. "The ninth Earl seems to have married nobody knows whom. And his son was my uncle's grandfather." This was a blow to Lady Scroope, but she bore it with dignity and courage. "You would hardly wish it to be said that you had copied the only one of your ancestors who did amiss. The world was rougher then than it is now, and he of whom you speak was a soldier." "I'm a soldier too," said the Earl. "Oh, Fred, is it thus you answer me! He was a soldier in rough times, when there were wars. I think he married when he was with the army under Marlborough." "I have not seen anything of that kind, certainly." "Your country is at peace, and your place is here, among your tenantry, at Scroope. You will promise me, Fred, that you will not marry this girl in Ireland?" "If I do, the fault will be all with that old maid at Castle Quin." "Do not say that, Fred. It is impossible. Let her conduct have been what it may, it cannot make that right in you which would have been wrong, or that wrong which would have been right." "She's a nasty meddlesome cat." "I will not talk about her. What good would it do? You cannot at any rate be surprised at my extreme anxiety. You did promise your uncle most solemnly that you would never marry this young lady." "If I did, that ought to be enough." He was now waxing angry and his face was becoming red. He would bear a good deal from his uncle's widow, but he felt his own power and was not prepared to bear much more. "Of course I cannot bind you. I know well how impotent I am,--how powerless to exercise control. But I think, Fred, that for your uncle's sake you will not refuse to repeat your promise to me, if you intend to keep it. Why is it that I am so anxious? It is for your sake, and for the sake of a name which should be dearer to you than it is even to me." "I have no intention of marrying at all." "Do not say that." "I do say it. I do not want to keep either you or Jack in the dark as to my future life. This young lady,--of whom, by the by, neither you nor Lady Mary Quin know anything, shall not become Countess of Scroope. To that I have made up my mind." "Thank God." "But as long as she lives I will make no woman Countess of Scroope. Let Jack marry this girl that he is in love with. They shall live here and have the house to themselves if they like it. He will look after the property and shall have whatever income old Mellerby thinks proper. I will keep the promise I made to my uncle,--but the keeping of it will make it impossible for me to live here. I would prefer now that you should say no more on the subject." Then he left her, quitting the room with some stateliness in his step, as though conscious that at such a moment as this it behoved him to assume his rank. The dowager sat alone all that morning thinking of the thing she had done. She did now believe that he was positively resolved not to marry Kate O'Hara, and she believed also that she herself had fixed him in that resolution. In doing so had she or had she not committed a deadly sin? She knew almost with accuracy what had occurred on the coast of Clare. A young girl, innocent herself up to that moment, had been enticed to her ruin by words of love which had been hallowed in her ears by vows of marriage. Those vows which had possessed so deadly an efficacy, were now to be simply broken! The cruelty to her would be damnable, devilish,--surely worthy of hell if any sin of man can be so called! And she, who could not divest herself of a certain pride taken in the austere morality of her own life, she who was now a widow anxious to devote her life solely to God, had persuaded the man to this sin, in order that her successor as Countess of Scroope might not be, in her opinion, unfitting for nobility! The young lord had promised her that he would be guilty of this sin, so damnable, so devilish, telling her as he did so, that as a consequence of his promise he must continue to live a life of wickedness! In the agony of her spirit she threw herself upon her knees and implored the Lord to pardon her and to guide her. But even while kneeling before the throne of heaven she could not drive the pride of birth out of her heart. That the young Earl might be saved from the damning sin and also from the polluting marriage;--that was the prayer she prayed. CHAPTER VIII. LOOSE ABOUT THE WORLD. The Countess was seen no more on that day,--was no more seen at least by either of the two brothers. Miss Mellerby was with her now and again, but on each occasion only for a few minutes, and reported that Lady Scroope was ill and could not appear at dinner. She would, however, see her nephew before he started on the following morning. Fred himself was much affected by the interview with his aunt. No doubt he had made a former promise to his uncle, similar to that which had now been exacted from him. No doubt he had himself resolved, after what he had thought to be mature consideration that he would not marry the girl, justifying to himself this decision by the deceit which he thought had been practised upon him in regard to Captain O'Hara. Nevertheless, he felt that by what had now occurred he was bound more strongly against the marriage than he had ever been bound before. His promise to his uncle might have been regarded as being obligatory only as long as his uncle lived. His own decision he would have been at liberty to change when he pleased to do so. But, though his aunt was almost nothing to him,--was not in very truth his aunt, but only the widow of his uncle, there had been a solemnity about the engagement as he had now made it with her, which he felt to be definitely binding. He must go to Ardkill prepared to tell them absolutely the truth. He would make any arrangement they pleased as to their future joint lives, so long as it was an arrangement by which Kate should not become Countess of Scroope. He did not attempt to conceal from himself the dreadful nature of the task before him. He knew what would be the indignation of the priest. He could picture to himself the ferocity of the mother, defending her young as a lioness would her whelp. He could imagine that that dagger might again be brought from its hiding place. And, worse than all, he would see the girl prostrate in her woe, and appealing to his love and to his oaths, when the truth as to her future life should be revealed to her. But yet he did not think of shunning the task before him. He could not endure to live a coward in his own esteem. He was unlike himself and very melancholy. "It has been so good of you to remain here," he said to Sophie Mellerby. They had now become intimate and almost attached to each other as friends. If she had allowed a spark of hope to become bright within her heart in regard to the young Earl that had long since been quenched. She had acknowledged to herself that had it been possible in other respects they would not have suited each other,--and now they were friends. "I love your aunt dearly and have been very glad to be with her." "I wish you would learn to love somebody else dearly." "Perhaps I shall, some day,--somebody else; though I don't at all know who it may be." "You know whom I mean." "I suppose I do." "And why not love him? Isn't he a good fellow?" "One can't love all the good fellows, Lord Scroope." "You'll never find a better one than he is." "Did he commission you to speak for him?" "You know he didn't. You know that he would be the last man in the world to do so?" "I was surprised." "But I had a reason for speaking." "No doubt." "I don't suppose it will have any effect with you;--but it is something you ought to know. If any man of my age can be supposed to have made up his mind on such a matter, you may believe that I have made up my mind that I will--never marry." "What nonsense, Lord Scroope." "Well;--yes; perhaps it is. But I am so convinced of it myself that I shall ask my brother to come and live here--permanently,--as master of the place. As he would have to leave his regiment it would of course be necessary that his position here should be settled,--and it shall be settled." "I most sincerely hope that you will always live here yourself." "It won't suit me. Circumstances have made it impossible. If he will not do so, nor my aunt, the house must be shut up. I am most anxious that this should not be done. I shall implore him to remain here, and to be here exactly as I should have been,--had things with me not have been so very unfortunate. He will at any rate have a house to offer you, if--" "Lord Scroope!" "I know what you are going to say, Sophie." "I don't know that I am as yet disposed to marry for the sake of a house to shelter me." "Of course you would say that; but still I think that I have been right to tell you. I am sure you will believe my assurance that Jack knows nothing of all this." That same evening he said nearly the same thing to his brother, though in doing so he made no special allusion to Sophie Mellerby. "I know that there is a great deal that a fellow should do, living in such a house as this, but I am not the man to do it. It's a very good kind of life, if you happen to be up to it. I am not, but you are." "My dear Fred, you can't change the accidents of birth." "In a great measure I can; or at least we can do so between us. You can't be Lord Scroope, but you can be master of Scroope Manor." "No I can't;--and, which is more, I won't. Don't think I am uncivil." "You are uncivil, Jack." "At any rate I am not ungrateful. I only want you to understand thoroughly that such an arrangement is out of the question. In no condition of life would I care to be the locum tenens for another man. You are now five or six and twenty. At thirty you may be a married man with an absolute need for your own house." "I would execute any deed." "So that I might be enabled to keep the owner of the property out of the only place that is fit for him! It is a power which I should not use, and do not wish to possess. Believe me, Fred, that a man is bound to submit himself to the circumstances by which he is surrounded, when it is clear that they are beneficial to the world at large. There must be an Earl of Scroope, and you at present are the man." They were sitting together out upon the terrace after dinner, and for a time there was silence. His brother's arguments were too strong for the young lord, and it was out of his power to deal with one so dogmatic. But he did not forget the last words that had been spoken. It may be that "I shall not be the man very long," he said at last. "Any of us may die to-day or to-morrow," said Jack. "I have a kind of presentiment,--not that I shall die, but that I shall never see Scroope again. It seems as though I were certainly leaving for ever a place that has always been distasteful to me." "I never believe anything of presentiments." "No; of course not. You're not that sort of fellow at all. But I am. I can't think of myself as living here with a dozen old fogies about the place all doing nothing, touching their hats, my-lording me at every turn, looking respectable, but as idle as pickpockets." "You'll have to do it." "Perhaps I shall, but I don't think it." Then there was again silence for a time. "The less said about it the better, but I know that I've got a very difficult job before me in Ireland." "I don't envy you, Fred;--not that." "It is no use talking about it. It has got to be done, and the sooner done the better. What I shall do when it is done, I have not the most remote idea. Where I shall be living this day month I cannot guess. I can only say one thing certainly, and that is that I shall not come back here. There never was a fellow so loose about the world as I am." It was terrible that a young man who had it in his power to do so much good or so much evil should have had nothing to bind him to the better course! There was the motto of his house, and the promises which he had made to his uncle persuading him to that which was respectable and as he thought dull; and opposed to those influences there was an unconquerable feeling on his own part that he was altogether unfitted for the kind of life that was expected of him. Joined to this there was the fact of that unfortunate connection in Ireland from which he knew that it would be base to fly, and which, as it seemed to him, made any attempt at respectability impossible to him. Early on the following morning, as he was preparing to start, his aunt again sent for him. She came out to him in the sitting-room adjoining her bedroom and there embraced him. Her eyes were red with weeping, and her face wan with care. "Fred," she said; "dear Fred." "Good-bye, aunt. The last word I have to say is that I implore you not to leave Scroope as long as you are comfortable here." "You will come back?" "I cannot say anything certain about that." She still had hold of him with both hands and was looking into his face with loving, frightened, wistful eyes. "I know," she said, "that you will be thinking of what passed between us yesterday." "Certainly I shall remember it." "I have been praying for you, Fred; and now I tell you to look to your Father which is in Heaven for guidance, and not to take it from any poor frail sinful human being. Ask Him to keep your feet steady in the path, and your heart pure, and your thoughts free from wickedness. Oh, Fred, keep your mind and body clear before Him, and if you will kneel to Him for protection, He will show you a way through all difficulties." It was thus that she intended to tell him that his promise to her, made on the previous day, was to count for nought, and that he was to marry the girl if by no other way he could release himself from vice. But she could not bring herself to declare to him in plain terms that he had better marry Kate O'Hara, and bring his new Countess to Scroope in order that she might be fitly received by her predecessor. It might be that the Lord would still show him a way out of the two evils. But his brother was more clear of purpose with him, as they walked together out to the yard in which the young Earl was to get into his carriage. "Upon the whole, Fred, if I were you I should marry that girl." This he said quite abruptly. The young lord shook his head. "It may be that I do not know all the circumstances. If they be as I have heard them from you, I should marry her. Good-bye. Let me hear from you, when you have settled as to going anywhere." "I shall be sure to write," said Fred as he took the reins and seated him in the phaeton. His brother's advice he understood plainly, and that of his aunt he thought that he understood. But he shook his head again as he told himself that he could not now be guided by either of them. CHAPTER IX. AT LISCANNOR. The young lord slept one night at Ennis, and on the third morning after his departure from Scroope, started in his gig for Liscannor and the cliffs of Moher. He took a servant with him and a change of clothes. And as he went his heart was very heavy. He could not live a coward in his own esteem. Were it not so how willingly would he have saved himself from the misery of this journey, and have sent to his Kate to bid her come to him in England! He feared the priest, and he feared his Kate's mother;--not her dagger, but her eyes and scorching words. He altogether doubted his own powers to perform satisfactorily the task before him. He knew men who could do it. His brother Jack would do it, were it possible that his brother Jack should be in such a position. But for himself, he was conscious of a softness of heart, a feminine tenderness, which,--to do him justice,--he did not mistake for sincerity, that rendered him unfit for the task before him. The farther he journeyed from Scroope and the nearer that he found himself to the cliffs the stronger did the feeling grow within him, till it had become almost

latterly

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

women,--who in all other views of life are perhaps tender and soft-natured,--is one of the marvels of our social system. It is as though a certain line were drawn to include all women,--a line, but, alas, little more than a line,--by overstepping which, or rather by being known to have overstepped it, a woman ceases to be a woman in the estimation of her own sex. That the existence of this feeling has strong effect in saving women from passing the line, none of us can doubt. That its general tendency may be good rather than evil, is possible. But the hardness necessary to preserve the rule, a hardness which must be exclusively feminine but which is seldom wanting, is a marvellous feature in the female character. Lady Mary Quin probably thought but little on the subject. The women in the cottage on the cliff, who were befriended by Father Marty, were to her dangerous scheming Roman Catholic adventurers. The proper triumph of Protestant virtue required that they should fail in their adventures. She had always known that there would be something disreputable heard of them sooner or later. When the wretched Captain came into the neighbourhood,--and she soon heard of his coming,--she was gratified by feeling that her convictions had been correct. When the sad tidings as to poor Kate reached her ears, she had "known that it would be so." That such a girl should be made Countess of Scroope in reward for her wickedness would be to her an event horrible, almost contrary to Divine Providence,--a testimony that the Evil One was being allowed peculiar power at the moment, and would no doubt have been used in her own circles to show the ruin that had been brought upon the country by Catholic emancipation. She did not for a moment doubt that the present Earl should be encouraged to break any promises of marriage to the making of which he might have been allured. But it was not so with Lady Scroope. She, indeed, came to the same conclusion as her friend, but she did so with much difficulty and after many inward struggles. She understood and valued the customs of the magic line. In her heart of hearts she approved of a different code of morals for men and women. That which merited instant, and as regarded this world, perpetual condemnation in a woman, might in a man be very easily forgiven. A sigh, a shake of the head, and some small innocent stratagem that might lead to a happy marriage and settlement in life with increased income, would have been her treatment of such sin for the heirs of the great and wealthy. She knew that the world could not afford to ostracise the men,--though happily it might condemn the women. Nevertheless, when she came to the single separated instance, though her heart melted with no ruth for the woman,--in such cases the woman must be seen before the ruth is felt,--though pity for Kate O'Hara did not influence her, she did acknowledge the sanctity of a gentleman's word. If, as Lady Mary told her, and as she could so well believe, the present Earl of Scroope had given to this girl a promise that he would marry her, if he had bound himself by his pledged word, as a nobleman and a gentleman, how could she bid him become a perjured knave? Sans reproche! Was he thus to begin to live and to deserve the motto of his house by the conduct of his life? But then the evil that would be done was so great! She did not for a moment doubt all that Lady Mary told her about the girl. The worst of it had indeed been admitted. She was a Roman Catholic, ill-born, ill-connected, damaged utterly by a parent so low that nothing lower could possibly be raked out of the world's gutters. And now the girl herself was--a castaway. Such a marriage as that of which Lady Mary spoke would not only injure the house of Scroope for the present generation, but would tend to its final downfall. Would it not be known throughout all England that the next Earl of Scroope would be the grandson of a convict? Might there not be questions as to the legitimacy of the assumed heir? She herself knew of noble families which had been scattered, confounded, and almost ruined by such imprudence. Hitherto the family of Scroope had been continued from generation to generation without stain,--almost without stain. It had felt it to be a fortunate thing that the late heir had died because of the pollution of his wretched marriage. And now must evil as bad befall it, worse evil perhaps, through the folly of this young man? Must that proud motto be taken down from its place in the hall from very shame? But the evil had not been done yet, and it might be that her words could save the house from ruin and disgrace. She was a woman of whom it may be said that whatever difficulty she might have in deciding a question she could recognise the necessity of a decision and could abide by it when she had made it. It was with great difficulty that she could bring herself to think that an Earl of Scroope should be false to a promise by which he had seduced a woman, but she did succeed in bringing herself to such thought. Her very heart bled within her as she acknowledged the necessity. A lie to her was abominable. A lie, to be told by herself, would have been hideous to her. A lie to be told by him, was worse. As virtue, what she called virtue, was the one thing indispensable to women, so was truth the one thing indispensable to men. And yet she must tell him to lie, and having resolved so to tell him, must use all her intellect to defend the lie,--and to insist upon it. He was determined to return to Ireland, and there was nothing that she could do to prevent his return. She could not bid him shun a danger simply because it was a danger. He was his own master, and were she to do so he would only laugh at her. Of authority with him she had none. If she spoke, he must listen. Her position would secure so much to her from courtesy,--and were she to speak of the duty which he owed to his name and to the family he could hardly laugh. She therefore sent to him a message. Would he kindly go to her in her own room? Of course he attended to her wishes and went. "You mean to leave us to-morrow, Fred," she said. We all know the peculiar solemnity of a widow's dress,--the look of self-sacrifice on the part of the woman which the dress creates; and have perhaps recognised the fact that if the woman be deterred by no necessities of oeconomy in her toilet,--as in such material circumstances the splendour is more perfect if splendour be the object,--so also is the self-sacrifice more abject. And with this widow an appearance of melancholy solemnity, almost of woe, was natural to her. She was one whose life had ever been serious, solemn, and sad. Wealth and the outward pomp of circumstances had conferred upon her a certain dignity; and with that doubtless there had reached her some feeling of satisfaction. Religion too had given her comfort, and a routine of small duties had saved her from the wretchedness of ennui. But life with her had had no laughter, and had seldom smiled. Now in the first days of her widowhood she regarded her course as run, and looked upon herself as one who, in speaking, almost spoke from the tomb. All this had its effect upon the young lord. She did inspire him with a certain awe; and though her weeds gave her no authority, they did give her weight. "Yes; I shall start to-morrow," he replied. "And you still mean to go to Ireland?" "Yes;--I must go to Ireland. I shan't stay there, you know." Then she paused a moment before she proceeded. "Shall you see--that young woman when you are there?" "I suppose I shall see her." "Pray do not think that I desire to interfere with your private affairs. I know well that I have no right to assume over you any of that affectionate authority which a mother might have,--though in truth I love you as a son." "I would treat you just as I would my own mother." "No, Fred; that cannot be so. A mother would throw her arms round you and cling to you if she saw you going into danger. A mother would follow you, hoping that she might save you." "But there is no danger." "Ah, Fred, I fear there is." "What danger?" "You are now the head of one of the oldest and the noblest families in this which in my heart I believe to be the least sinful among the sinful nations of the wicked world." "I don't quite know how that may be;--I mean about the world. Of course I understand about the family." "But you love your country?" "Oh yes. I don't think there's any place like England,--to live in." "And England is what it is because there are still some left among us who are born to high rank and who know how to live up to the standard that is required of them. If ever there was such a man, your uncle was such a one." "I'm sure he was;--just what he ought to have been." "Honourable, true, affectionate, self-denying, affable to all men, but ever conscious of his rank, giving much because much had been given to him, asserting his nobility for the benefit of those around him, proud of his order for the sake of his country, bearing his sorrows with the dignity of silence, a nobleman all over, living on to the end sans reproche! He was a man whom you may dare to imitate, though to follow him may be difficult." She spoke not loudly, but clearly, looking him full in the face as she stood motionless before him. "He was all that," said Fred, almost overpowered by the sincere solemnity of his aunt's manner. "Will you try to walk in his footsteps?" "Two men can never be like one another in that way. I shall never be what he was. But I'll endeavour to get along as well as I can." "You will remember your order?" "Yes, I will. I do remember it. Mind you, aunt, I am not glad that I belong to it. I think I do understand about it all, and will do my best. But Jack would have made a better Earl than I shall do. That's the truth." "The Lord God has placed you,--and you must pray to Him that He will enable you to do your duty in that state of life to which it has pleased Him to call you. You are here and must bear his decree; and whether it be a privilege to enjoy, you must enjoy it, or a burden to bear, you must endure it." "It is so of course." "Knowing that, you must know also how incumbent it is upon you not to defile the stock from which you are sprung." "I suppose it has been defiled," said Fred, who had been looking into the history of the family. "The ninth Earl seems to have married nobody knows whom. And his son was my uncle's grandfather." This was a blow to Lady Scroope, but she bore it with dignity and courage. "You would hardly wish it to be said that you had copied the only one of your ancestors who did amiss. The world was rougher then than it is now, and he of whom you speak was a soldier." "I'm a soldier too," said the Earl. "Oh, Fred, is it thus you answer me! He was a soldier in rough times, when there were wars. I think he married when he was with the army under Marlborough." "I have not seen anything of that kind, certainly." "Your country is at peace, and your place is here, among your tenantry, at Scroope. You will promise me, Fred, that you will not marry this girl in Ireland?" "If I do, the fault will be all with that old maid at Castle Quin." "Do not say that, Fred. It is impossible. Let her conduct have been what it may, it cannot make that right in you which would have been wrong, or that wrong which would have been right." "She's a nasty meddlesome cat." "I will not talk about her. What good would it do? You cannot at any rate be surprised at my extreme anxiety. You did promise your uncle most solemnly that you would never marry this young lady." "If I did, that ought to be enough." He was now waxing angry and his face was becoming red. He would bear a good deal from his uncle's widow, but he felt his own power and was not prepared to bear much more. "Of course I cannot bind you. I know well how impotent I am,--how powerless to exercise control. But I think, Fred, that for your uncle's sake you will not refuse to repeat your promise to me, if you intend to keep it. Why is it that I am so anxious? It is for your sake, and for the sake of a name which should be dearer to you than it is even to me." "I have no intention of marrying at all." "Do not say that." "I do say it. I do not want to keep either you or Jack in the dark as to my future life. This young lady,--of whom, by the by, neither you nor Lady Mary Quin know anything, shall not become Countess of Scroope. To that I have made up my mind." "Thank God." "But as long as she lives I will make no woman Countess of Scroope. Let Jack marry this girl that he is in love with. They shall live here and have the house to themselves if they like it. He will look after the property and shall have whatever income old Mellerby thinks proper. I will keep the promise I made to my uncle,--but the keeping of it will make it impossible for me to live here. I would prefer now that you should say no more on the subject." Then he left her, quitting the room with some stateliness in his step, as though conscious that at such a moment as this it behoved him to assume his rank. The dowager sat alone all that morning thinking of the thing she had done. She did now believe that he was positively resolved not to marry Kate O'Hara, and she believed also that she herself had fixed him in that resolution. In doing so had she or had she not committed a deadly sin? She knew almost with accuracy what had occurred on the coast of Clare. A young girl, innocent herself up to that moment, had been enticed to her ruin by words of love which had been hallowed in her ears by vows of marriage. Those vows which had possessed so deadly an efficacy, were now to be simply broken! The cruelty to her would be damnable, devilish,--surely worthy of hell if any sin of man can be so called! And she, who could not divest herself of a certain pride taken in the austere morality of her own life, she who was now a widow anxious to devote her life solely to God, had persuaded the man to this sin, in order that her successor as Countess of Scroope might not be, in her opinion, unfitting for nobility! The young lord had promised her that he would be guilty of this sin, so damnable, so devilish, telling her as he did so, that as a consequence of his promise he must continue to live a life of wickedness! In the agony of her spirit she threw herself upon her knees and implored the Lord to pardon her and to guide her. But even while kneeling before the throne of heaven she could not drive the pride of birth out of her heart. That the young Earl might be saved from the damning sin and also from the polluting marriage;--that was the prayer she prayed. CHAPTER VIII. LOOSE ABOUT THE WORLD. The Countess was seen no more on that day,--was no more seen at least by either of the two brothers. Miss Mellerby was with her now and again, but on each occasion only for a few minutes, and reported that Lady Scroope was ill and could not appear at dinner. She would, however, see her nephew before he started on the following morning. Fred himself was much affected by the interview with his aunt. No doubt he had made a former promise to his uncle, similar to that which had now been exacted from him. No doubt he had himself resolved, after what he had thought to be mature consideration that he would not marry the girl, justifying to himself this decision by the deceit which he thought had been practised upon him in regard to Captain O'Hara. Nevertheless, he felt that by what had now occurred he was bound more strongly against the marriage than he had ever been bound before. His promise to his uncle might have been regarded as being obligatory only as long as his uncle lived. His own decision he would have been at liberty to change when he pleased to do so. But, though his aunt was almost nothing to him,--was not in very truth his aunt, but only the widow of his uncle, there had been a solemnity about the engagement as he had now made it with her, which he felt to be definitely binding. He must go to Ardkill prepared to tell them absolutely the truth. He would make any arrangement they pleased as to their future joint lives, so long as it was an arrangement by which Kate should not become Countess of Scroope. He did not attempt to conceal from himself the dreadful nature of the task before him. He knew what would be the indignation of the priest. He could picture to himself the ferocity of the mother, defending her young as a lioness would her whelp. He could imagine that that dagger might again be brought from its hiding place. And, worse than all, he would see the girl prostrate in her woe, and appealing to his love and to his oaths, when the truth as to her future life should be revealed to her. But yet he did not think of shunning the task before him. He could not endure to live a coward in his own esteem. He was unlike himself and very melancholy. "It has been so good of you to remain here," he said to Sophie Mellerby. They had now become intimate and almost attached to each other as friends. If she had allowed a spark of hope to become bright within her heart in regard to the young Earl that had long since been quenched. She had acknowledged to herself that had it been possible in other respects they would not have suited each other,--and now they were friends. "I love your aunt dearly and have been very glad to be with her." "I wish you would learn to love somebody else dearly." "Perhaps I shall, some day,--somebody else; though I don't at all know who it may be." "You know whom I mean." "I suppose I do." "And why not love him? Isn't he a good fellow?" "One can't love all the good fellows, Lord Scroope." "You'll never find a better one than he is." "Did he commission you to speak for him?" "You know he didn't. You know that he would be the last man in the world to do so?" "I was surprised." "But I had a reason for speaking." "No doubt." "I don't suppose it will have any effect with you;--but it is something you ought to know. If any man of my age can be supposed to have made up his mind on such a matter, you may believe that I have made up my mind that I will--never marry." "What nonsense, Lord Scroope." "Well;--yes; perhaps it is. But I am so convinced of it myself that I shall ask my brother to come and live here--permanently,--as master of the place. As he would have to leave his regiment it would of course be necessary that his position here should be settled,--and it shall be settled." "I most sincerely hope that you will always live here yourself." "It won't suit me. Circumstances have made it impossible. If he will not do so, nor my aunt, the house must be shut up. I am most anxious that this should not be done. I shall implore him to remain here, and to be here exactly as I should have been,--had things with me not have been so very unfortunate. He will at any rate have a house to offer you, if--" "Lord Scroope!" "I know what you are going to say, Sophie." "I don't know that I am as yet disposed to marry for the sake of a house to shelter me." "Of course you would say that; but still I think that I have been right to tell you. I am sure you will believe my assurance that Jack knows nothing of all this." That same evening he said nearly the same thing to his brother, though in doing so he made no special allusion to Sophie Mellerby. "I know that there is a great deal that a fellow should do, living in such a house as this, but I am not the man to do it. It's a very good kind of life, if you happen to be up to it. I am not, but you are." "My dear Fred, you can't change the accidents of birth." "In a great measure I can; or at least we can do so between us. You can't be Lord Scroope, but you can be master of Scroope Manor." "No I can't;--and, which is more, I won't. Don't think I am uncivil." "You are uncivil, Jack." "At any rate I am not ungrateful. I only want you to understand thoroughly that such an arrangement is out of the question. In no condition of life would I care to be the locum tenens for another man. You are now five or six and twenty. At thirty you may be a married man with an absolute need for your own house." "I would execute any deed." "So that I might be enabled to keep the owner of the property out of the only place that is fit for him! It is a power which I should not use, and do not wish to possess. Believe me, Fred, that a man is bound to submit himself to the circumstances by which he is surrounded, when it is clear that they are beneficial to the world at large. There must be an Earl of Scroope, and you at present are the man." They were sitting together out upon the terrace after dinner, and for a time there was silence. His brother's arguments were too strong for the young lord, and it was out of his power to deal with one so dogmatic. But he did not forget the last words that had been spoken. It may be that "I shall not be the man very long," he said at last. "Any of us may die to-day or to-morrow," said Jack. "I have a kind of presentiment,--not that I shall die, but that I shall never see Scroope again. It seems as though I were certainly leaving for ever a place that has always been distasteful to me." "I never believe anything of presentiments." "No; of course not. You're not that sort of fellow at all. But I am. I can't think of myself as living here with a dozen old fogies about the place all doing nothing, touching their hats, my-lording me at every turn, looking respectable, but as idle as pickpockets." "You'll have to do it." "Perhaps I shall, but I don't think it." Then there was again silence for a time. "The less said about it the better, but I know that I've got a very difficult job before me in Ireland." "I don't envy you, Fred;--not that." "It is no use talking about it. It has got to be done, and the sooner done the better. What I shall do when it is done, I have not the most remote idea. Where I shall be living this day month I cannot guess. I can only say one thing certainly, and that is that I shall not come back here. There never was a fellow so loose about the world as I am." It was terrible that a young man who had it in his power to do so much good or so much evil should have had nothing to bind him to the better course! There was the motto of his house, and the promises which he had made to his uncle persuading him to that which was respectable and as he thought dull; and opposed to those influences there was an unconquerable feeling on his own part that he was altogether unfitted for the kind of life that was expected of him. Joined to this there was the fact of that unfortunate connection in Ireland from which he knew that it would be base to fly, and which, as it seemed to him, made any attempt at respectability impossible to him. Early on the following morning, as he was preparing to start, his aunt again sent for him. She came out to him in the sitting-room adjoining her bedroom and there embraced him. Her eyes were red with weeping, and her face wan with care. "Fred," she said; "dear Fred." "Good-bye, aunt. The last word I have to say is that I implore you not to leave Scroope as long as you are comfortable here." "You will come back?" "I cannot say anything certain about that." She still had hold of him with both hands and was looking into his face with loving, frightened, wistful eyes. "I know," she said, "that you will be thinking of what passed between us yesterday." "Certainly I shall remember it." "I have been praying for you, Fred; and now I tell you to look to your Father which is in Heaven for guidance, and not to take it from any poor frail sinful human being. Ask Him to keep your feet steady in the path, and your heart pure, and your thoughts free from wickedness. Oh, Fred, keep your mind and body clear before Him, and if you will kneel to Him for protection, He will show you a way through all difficulties." It was thus that she intended to tell him that his promise to her, made on the previous day, was to count for nought, and that he was to marry the girl if by no other way he could release himself from vice. But she could not bring herself to declare to him in plain terms that he had better marry Kate O'Hara, and bring his new Countess to Scroope in order that she might be fitly received by her predecessor. It might be that the Lord would still show him a way out of the two evils. But his brother was more clear of purpose with him, as they walked together out to the yard in which the young Earl was to get into his carriage. "Upon the whole, Fred, if I were you I should marry that girl." This he said quite abruptly. The young lord shook his head. "It may be that I do not know all the circumstances. If they be as I have heard them from you, I should marry her. Good-bye. Let me hear from you, when you have settled as to going anywhere." "I shall be sure to write," said Fred as he took the reins and seated him in the phaeton. His brother's advice he understood plainly, and that of his aunt he thought that he understood. But he shook his head again as he told himself that he could not now be guided by either of them. CHAPTER IX. AT LISCANNOR. The young lord slept one night at Ennis, and on the third morning after his departure from Scroope, started in his gig for Liscannor and the cliffs of Moher. He took a servant with him and a change of clothes. And as he went his heart was very heavy. He could not live a coward in his own esteem. Were it not so how willingly would he have saved himself from the misery of this journey, and have sent to his Kate to bid her come to him in England! He feared the priest, and he feared his Kate's mother;--not her dagger, but her eyes and scorching words. He altogether doubted his own powers to perform satisfactorily the task before him. He knew men who could do it. His brother Jack would do it, were it possible that his brother Jack should be in such a position. But for himself, he was conscious of a softness of heart, a feminine tenderness, which,--to do him justice,--he did not mistake for sincerity, that rendered him unfit for the task before him. The farther he journeyed from Scroope and the nearer that he found himself to the cliffs the stronger did the feeling grow within him, till it had become almost

behind

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

women,--who in all other views of life are perhaps tender and soft-natured,--is one of the marvels of our social system. It is as though a certain line were drawn to include all women,--a line, but, alas, little more than a line,--by overstepping which, or rather by being known to have overstepped it, a woman ceases to be a woman in the estimation of her own sex. That the existence of this feeling has strong effect in saving women from passing the line, none of us can doubt. That its general tendency may be good rather than evil, is possible. But the hardness necessary to preserve the rule, a hardness which must be exclusively feminine but which is seldom wanting, is a marvellous feature in the female character. Lady Mary Quin probably thought but little on the subject. The women in the cottage on the cliff, who were befriended by Father Marty, were to her dangerous scheming Roman Catholic adventurers. The proper triumph of Protestant virtue required that they should fail in their adventures. She had always known that there would be something disreputable heard of them sooner or later. When the wretched Captain came into the neighbourhood,--and she soon heard of his coming,--she was gratified by feeling that her convictions had been correct. When the sad tidings as to poor Kate reached her ears, she had "known that it would be so." That such a girl should be made Countess of Scroope in reward for her wickedness would be to her an event horrible, almost contrary to Divine Providence,--a testimony that the Evil One was being allowed peculiar power at the moment, and would no doubt have been used in her own circles to show the ruin that had been brought upon the country by Catholic emancipation. She did not for a moment doubt that the present Earl should be encouraged to break any promises of marriage to the making of which he might have been allured. But it was not so with Lady Scroope. She, indeed, came to the same conclusion as her friend, but she did so with much difficulty and after many inward struggles. She understood and valued the customs of the magic line. In her heart of hearts she approved of a different code of morals for men and women. That which merited instant, and as regarded this world, perpetual condemnation in a woman, might in a man be very easily forgiven. A sigh, a shake of the head, and some small innocent stratagem that might lead to a happy marriage and settlement in life with increased income, would have been her treatment of such sin for the heirs of the great and wealthy. She knew that the world could not afford to ostracise the men,--though happily it might condemn the women. Nevertheless, when she came to the single separated instance, though her heart melted with no ruth for the woman,--in such cases the woman must be seen before the ruth is felt,--though pity for Kate O'Hara did not influence her, she did acknowledge the sanctity of a gentleman's word. If, as Lady Mary told her, and as she could so well believe, the present Earl of Scroope had given to this girl a promise that he would marry her, if he had bound himself by his pledged word, as a nobleman and a gentleman, how could she bid him become a perjured knave? Sans reproche! Was he thus to begin to live and to deserve the motto of his house by the conduct of his life? But then the evil that would be done was so great! She did not for a moment doubt all that Lady Mary told her about the girl. The worst of it had indeed been admitted. She was a Roman Catholic, ill-born, ill-connected, damaged utterly by a parent so low that nothing lower could possibly be raked out of the world's gutters. And now the girl herself was--a castaway. Such a marriage as that of which Lady Mary spoke would not only injure the house of Scroope for the present generation, but would tend to its final downfall. Would it not be known throughout all England that the next Earl of Scroope would be the grandson of a convict? Might there not be questions as to the legitimacy of the assumed heir? She herself knew of noble families which had been scattered, confounded, and almost ruined by such imprudence. Hitherto the family of Scroope had been continued from generation to generation without stain,--almost without stain. It had felt it to be a fortunate thing that the late heir had died because of the pollution of his wretched marriage. And now must evil as bad befall it, worse evil perhaps, through the folly of this young man? Must that proud motto be taken down from its place in the hall from very shame? But the evil had not been done yet, and it might be that her words could save the house from ruin and disgrace. She was a woman of whom it may be said that whatever difficulty she might have in deciding a question she could recognise the necessity of a decision and could abide by it when she had made it. It was with great difficulty that she could bring herself to think that an Earl of Scroope should be false to a promise by which he had seduced a woman, but she did succeed in bringing herself to such thought. Her very heart bled within her as she acknowledged the necessity. A lie to her was abominable. A lie, to be told by herself, would have been hideous to her. A lie to be told by him, was worse. As virtue, what she called virtue, was the one thing indispensable to women, so was truth the one thing indispensable to men. And yet she must tell him to lie, and having resolved so to tell him, must use all her intellect to defend the lie,--and to insist upon it. He was determined to return to Ireland, and there was nothing that she could do to prevent his return. She could not bid him shun a danger simply because it was a danger. He was his own master, and were she to do so he would only laugh at her. Of authority with him she had none. If she spoke, he must listen. Her position would secure so much to her from courtesy,--and were she to speak of the duty which he owed to his name and to the family he could hardly laugh. She therefore sent to him a message. Would he kindly go to her in her own room? Of course he attended to her wishes and went. "You mean to leave us to-morrow, Fred," she said. We all know the peculiar solemnity of a widow's dress,--the look of self-sacrifice on the part of the woman which the dress creates; and have perhaps recognised the fact that if the woman be deterred by no necessities of oeconomy in her toilet,--as in such material circumstances the splendour is more perfect if splendour be the object,--so also is the self-sacrifice more abject. And with this widow an appearance of melancholy solemnity, almost of woe, was natural to her. She was one whose life had ever been serious, solemn, and sad. Wealth and the outward pomp of circumstances had conferred upon her a certain dignity; and with that doubtless there had reached her some feeling of satisfaction. Religion too had given her comfort, and a routine of small duties had saved her from the wretchedness of ennui. But life with her had had no laughter, and had seldom smiled. Now in the first days of her widowhood she regarded her course as run, and looked upon herself as one who, in speaking, almost spoke from the tomb. All this had its effect upon the young lord. She did inspire him with a certain awe; and though her weeds gave her no authority, they did give her weight. "Yes; I shall start to-morrow," he replied. "And you still mean to go to Ireland?" "Yes;--I must go to Ireland. I shan't stay there, you know." Then she paused a moment before she proceeded. "Shall you see--that young woman when you are there?" "I suppose I shall see her." "Pray do not think that I desire to interfere with your private affairs. I know well that I have no right to assume over you any of that affectionate authority which a mother might have,--though in truth I love you as a son." "I would treat you just as I would my own mother." "No, Fred; that cannot be so. A mother would throw her arms round you and cling to you if she saw you going into danger. A mother would follow you, hoping that she might save you." "But there is no danger." "Ah, Fred, I fear there is." "What danger?" "You are now the head of one of the oldest and the noblest families in this which in my heart I believe to be the least sinful among the sinful nations of the wicked world." "I don't quite know how that may be;--I mean about the world. Of course I understand about the family." "But you love your country?" "Oh yes. I don't think there's any place like England,--to live in." "And England is what it is because there are still some left among us who are born to high rank and who know how to live up to the standard that is required of them. If ever there was such a man, your uncle was such a one." "I'm sure he was;--just what he ought to have been." "Honourable, true, affectionate, self-denying, affable to all men, but ever conscious of his rank, giving much because much had been given to him, asserting his nobility for the benefit of those around him, proud of his order for the sake of his country, bearing his sorrows with the dignity of silence, a nobleman all over, living on to the end sans reproche! He was a man whom you may dare to imitate, though to follow him may be difficult." She spoke not loudly, but clearly, looking him full in the face as she stood motionless before him. "He was all that," said Fred, almost overpowered by the sincere solemnity of his aunt's manner. "Will you try to walk in his footsteps?" "Two men can never be like one another in that way. I shall never be what he was. But I'll endeavour to get along as well as I can." "You will remember your order?" "Yes, I will. I do remember it. Mind you, aunt, I am not glad that I belong to it. I think I do understand about it all, and will do my best. But Jack would have made a better Earl than I shall do. That's the truth." "The Lord God has placed you,--and you must pray to Him that He will enable you to do your duty in that state of life to which it has pleased Him to call you. You are here and must bear his decree; and whether it be a privilege to enjoy, you must enjoy it, or a burden to bear, you must endure it." "It is so of course." "Knowing that, you must know also how incumbent it is upon you not to defile the stock from which you are sprung." "I suppose it has been defiled," said Fred, who had been looking into the history of the family. "The ninth Earl seems to have married nobody knows whom. And his son was my uncle's grandfather." This was a blow to Lady Scroope, but she bore it with dignity and courage. "You would hardly wish it to be said that you had copied the only one of your ancestors who did amiss. The world was rougher then than it is now, and he of whom you speak was a soldier." "I'm a soldier too," said the Earl. "Oh, Fred, is it thus you answer me! He was a soldier in rough times, when there were wars. I think he married when he was with the army under Marlborough." "I have not seen anything of that kind, certainly." "Your country is at peace, and your place is here, among your tenantry, at Scroope. You will promise me, Fred, that you will not marry this girl in Ireland?" "If I do, the fault will be all with that old maid at Castle Quin." "Do not say that, Fred. It is impossible. Let her conduct have been what it may, it cannot make that right in you which would have been wrong, or that wrong which would have been right." "She's a nasty meddlesome cat." "I will not talk about her. What good would it do? You cannot at any rate be surprised at my extreme anxiety. You did promise your uncle most solemnly that you would never marry this young lady." "If I did, that ought to be enough." He was now waxing angry and his face was becoming red. He would bear a good deal from his uncle's widow, but he felt his own power and was not prepared to bear much more. "Of course I cannot bind you. I know well how impotent I am,--how powerless to exercise control. But I think, Fred, that for your uncle's sake you will not refuse to repeat your promise to me, if you intend to keep it. Why is it that I am so anxious? It is for your sake, and for the sake of a name which should be dearer to you than it is even to me." "I have no intention of marrying at all." "Do not say that." "I do say it. I do not want to keep either you or Jack in the dark as to my future life. This young lady,--of whom, by the by, neither you nor Lady Mary Quin know anything, shall not become Countess of Scroope. To that I have made up my mind." "Thank God." "But as long as she lives I will make no woman Countess of Scroope. Let Jack marry this girl that he is in love with. They shall live here and have the house to themselves if they like it. He will look after the property and shall have whatever income old Mellerby thinks proper. I will keep the promise I made to my uncle,--but the keeping of it will make it impossible for me to live here. I would prefer now that you should say no more on the subject." Then he left her, quitting the room with some stateliness in his step, as though conscious that at such a moment as this it behoved him to assume his rank. The dowager sat alone all that morning thinking of the thing she had done. She did now believe that he was positively resolved not to marry Kate O'Hara, and she believed also that she herself had fixed him in that resolution. In doing so had she or had she not committed a deadly sin? She knew almost with accuracy what had occurred on the coast of Clare. A young girl, innocent herself up to that moment, had been enticed to her ruin by words of love which had been hallowed in her ears by vows of marriage. Those vows which had possessed so deadly an efficacy, were now to be simply broken! The cruelty to her would be damnable, devilish,--surely worthy of hell if any sin of man can be so called! And she, who could not divest herself of a certain pride taken in the austere morality of her own life, she who was now a widow anxious to devote her life solely to God, had persuaded the man to this sin, in order that her successor as Countess of Scroope might not be, in her opinion, unfitting for nobility! The young lord had promised her that he would be guilty of this sin, so damnable, so devilish, telling her as he did so, that as a consequence of his promise he must continue to live a life of wickedness! In the agony of her spirit she threw herself upon her knees and implored the Lord to pardon her and to guide her. But even while kneeling before the throne of heaven she could not drive the pride of birth out of her heart. That the young Earl might be saved from the damning sin and also from the polluting marriage;--that was the prayer she prayed. CHAPTER VIII. LOOSE ABOUT THE WORLD. The Countess was seen no more on that day,--was no more seen at least by either of the two brothers. Miss Mellerby was with her now and again, but on each occasion only for a few minutes, and reported that Lady Scroope was ill and could not appear at dinner. She would, however, see her nephew before he started on the following morning. Fred himself was much affected by the interview with his aunt. No doubt he had made a former promise to his uncle, similar to that which had now been exacted from him. No doubt he had himself resolved, after what he had thought to be mature consideration that he would not marry the girl, justifying to himself this decision by the deceit which he thought had been practised upon him in regard to Captain O'Hara. Nevertheless, he felt that by what had now occurred he was bound more strongly against the marriage than he had ever been bound before. His promise to his uncle might have been regarded as being obligatory only as long as his uncle lived. His own decision he would have been at liberty to change when he pleased to do so. But, though his aunt was almost nothing to him,--was not in very truth his aunt, but only the widow of his uncle, there had been a solemnity about the engagement as he had now made it with her, which he felt to be definitely binding. He must go to Ardkill prepared to tell them absolutely the truth. He would make any arrangement they pleased as to their future joint lives, so long as it was an arrangement by which Kate should not become Countess of Scroope. He did not attempt to conceal from himself the dreadful nature of the task before him. He knew what would be the indignation of the priest. He could picture to himself the ferocity of the mother, defending her young as a lioness would her whelp. He could imagine that that dagger might again be brought from its hiding place. And, worse than all, he would see the girl prostrate in her woe, and appealing to his love and to his oaths, when the truth as to her future life should be revealed to her. But yet he did not think of shunning the task before him. He could not endure to live a coward in his own esteem. He was unlike himself and very melancholy. "It has been so good of you to remain here," he said to Sophie Mellerby. They had now become intimate and almost attached to each other as friends. If she had allowed a spark of hope to become bright within her heart in regard to the young Earl that had long since been quenched. She had acknowledged to herself that had it been possible in other respects they would not have suited each other,--and now they were friends. "I love your aunt dearly and have been very glad to be with her." "I wish you would learn to love somebody else dearly." "Perhaps I shall, some day,--somebody else; though I don't at all know who it may be." "You know whom I mean." "I suppose I do." "And why not love him? Isn't he a good fellow?" "One can't love all the good fellows, Lord Scroope." "You'll never find a better one than he is." "Did he commission you to speak for him?" "You know he didn't. You know that he would be the last man in the world to do so?" "I was surprised." "But I had a reason for speaking." "No doubt." "I don't suppose it will have any effect with you;--but it is something you ought to know. If any man of my age can be supposed to have made up his mind on such a matter, you may believe that I have made up my mind that I will--never marry." "What nonsense, Lord Scroope." "Well;--yes; perhaps it is. But I am so convinced of it myself that I shall ask my brother to come and live here--permanently,--as master of the place. As he would have to leave his regiment it would of course be necessary that his position here should be settled,--and it shall be settled." "I most sincerely hope that you will always live here yourself." "It won't suit me. Circumstances have made it impossible. If he will not do so, nor my aunt, the house must be shut up. I am most anxious that this should not be done. I shall implore him to remain here, and to be here exactly as I should have been,--had things with me not have been so very unfortunate. He will at any rate have a house to offer you, if--" "Lord Scroope!" "I know what you are going to say, Sophie." "I don't know that I am as yet disposed to marry for the sake of a house to shelter me." "Of course you would say that; but still I think that I have been right to tell you. I am sure you will believe my assurance that Jack knows nothing of all this." That same evening he said nearly the same thing to his brother, though in doing so he made no special allusion to Sophie Mellerby. "I know that there is a great deal that a fellow should do, living in such a house as this, but I am not the man to do it. It's a very good kind of life, if you happen to be up to it. I am not, but you are." "My dear Fred, you can't change the accidents of birth." "In a great measure I can; or at least we can do so between us. You can't be Lord Scroope, but you can be master of Scroope Manor." "No I can't;--and, which is more, I won't. Don't think I am uncivil." "You are uncivil, Jack." "At any rate I am not ungrateful. I only want you to understand thoroughly that such an arrangement is out of the question. In no condition of life would I care to be the locum tenens for another man. You are now five or six and twenty. At thirty you may be a married man with an absolute need for your own house." "I would execute any deed." "So that I might be enabled to keep the owner of the property out of the only place that is fit for him! It is a power which I should not use, and do not wish to possess. Believe me, Fred, that a man is bound to submit himself to the circumstances by which he is surrounded, when it is clear that they are beneficial to the world at large. There must be an Earl of Scroope, and you at present are the man." They were sitting together out upon the terrace after dinner, and for a time there was silence. His brother's arguments were too strong for the young lord, and it was out of his power to deal with one so dogmatic. But he did not forget the last words that had been spoken. It may be that "I shall not be the man very long," he said at last. "Any of us may die to-day or to-morrow," said Jack. "I have a kind of presentiment,--not that I shall die, but that I shall never see Scroope again. It seems as though I were certainly leaving for ever a place that has always been distasteful to me." "I never believe anything of presentiments." "No; of course not. You're not that sort of fellow at all. But I am. I can't think of myself as living here with a dozen old fogies about the place all doing nothing, touching their hats, my-lording me at every turn, looking respectable, but as idle as pickpockets." "You'll have to do it." "Perhaps I shall, but I don't think it." Then there was again silence for a time. "The less said about it the better, but I know that I've got a very difficult job before me in Ireland." "I don't envy you, Fred;--not that." "It is no use talking about it. It has got to be done, and the sooner done the better. What I shall do when it is done, I have not the most remote idea. Where I shall be living this day month I cannot guess. I can only say one thing certainly, and that is that I shall not come back here. There never was a fellow so loose about the world as I am." It was terrible that a young man who had it in his power to do so much good or so much evil should have had nothing to bind him to the better course! There was the motto of his house, and the promises which he had made to his uncle persuading him to that which was respectable and as he thought dull; and opposed to those influences there was an unconquerable feeling on his own part that he was altogether unfitted for the kind of life that was expected of him. Joined to this there was the fact of that unfortunate connection in Ireland from which he knew that it would be base to fly, and which, as it seemed to him, made any attempt at respectability impossible to him. Early on the following morning, as he was preparing to start, his aunt again sent for him. She came out to him in the sitting-room adjoining her bedroom and there embraced him. Her eyes were red with weeping, and her face wan with care. "Fred," she said; "dear Fred." "Good-bye, aunt. The last word I have to say is that I implore you not to leave Scroope as long as you are comfortable here." "You will come back?" "I cannot say anything certain about that." She still had hold of him with both hands and was looking into his face with loving, frightened, wistful eyes. "I know," she said, "that you will be thinking of what passed between us yesterday." "Certainly I shall remember it." "I have been praying for you, Fred; and now I tell you to look to your Father which is in Heaven for guidance, and not to take it from any poor frail sinful human being. Ask Him to keep your feet steady in the path, and your heart pure, and your thoughts free from wickedness. Oh, Fred, keep your mind and body clear before Him, and if you will kneel to Him for protection, He will show you a way through all difficulties." It was thus that she intended to tell him that his promise to her, made on the previous day, was to count for nought, and that he was to marry the girl if by no other way he could release himself from vice. But she could not bring herself to declare to him in plain terms that he had better marry Kate O'Hara, and bring his new Countess to Scroope in order that she might be fitly received by her predecessor. It might be that the Lord would still show him a way out of the two evils. But his brother was more clear of purpose with him, as they walked together out to the yard in which the young Earl was to get into his carriage. "Upon the whole, Fred, if I were you I should marry that girl." This he said quite abruptly. The young lord shook his head. "It may be that I do not know all the circumstances. If they be as I have heard them from you, I should marry her. Good-bye. Let me hear from you, when you have settled as to going anywhere." "I shall be sure to write," said Fred as he took the reins and seated him in the phaeton. His brother's advice he understood plainly, and that of his aunt he thought that he understood. But he shook his head again as he told himself that he could not now be guided by either of them. CHAPTER IX. AT LISCANNOR. The young lord slept one night at Ennis, and on the third morning after his departure from Scroope, started in his gig for Liscannor and the cliffs of Moher. He took a servant with him and a change of clothes. And as he went his heart was very heavy. He could not live a coward in his own esteem. Were it not so how willingly would he have saved himself from the misery of this journey, and have sent to his Kate to bid her come to him in England! He feared the priest, and he feared his Kate's mother;--not her dagger, but her eyes and scorching words. He altogether doubted his own powers to perform satisfactorily the task before him. He knew men who could do it. His brother Jack would do it, were it possible that his brother Jack should be in such a position. But for himself, he was conscious of a softness of heart, a feminine tenderness, which,--to do him justice,--he did not mistake for sincerity, that rendered him unfit for the task before him. The farther he journeyed from Scroope and the nearer that he found himself to the cliffs the stronger did the feeling grow within him, till it had become almost

fairly

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

women,--who in all other views of life are perhaps tender and soft-natured,--is one of the marvels of our social system. It is as though a certain line were drawn to include all women,--a line, but, alas, little more than a line,--by overstepping which, or rather by being known to have overstepped it, a woman ceases to be a woman in the estimation of her own sex. That the existence of this feeling has strong effect in saving women from passing the line, none of us can doubt. That its general tendency may be good rather than evil, is possible. But the hardness necessary to preserve the rule, a hardness which must be exclusively feminine but which is seldom wanting, is a marvellous feature in the female character. Lady Mary Quin probably thought but little on the subject. The women in the cottage on the cliff, who were befriended by Father Marty, were to her dangerous scheming Roman Catholic adventurers. The proper triumph of Protestant virtue required that they should fail in their adventures. She had always known that there would be something disreputable heard of them sooner or later. When the wretched Captain came into the neighbourhood,--and she soon heard of his coming,--she was gratified by feeling that her convictions had been correct. When the sad tidings as to poor Kate reached her ears, she had "known that it would be so." That such a girl should be made Countess of Scroope in reward for her wickedness would be to her an event horrible, almost contrary to Divine Providence,--a testimony that the Evil One was being allowed peculiar power at the moment, and would no doubt have been used in her own circles to show the ruin that had been brought upon the country by Catholic emancipation. She did not for a moment doubt that the present Earl should be encouraged to break any promises of marriage to the making of which he might have been allured. But it was not so with Lady Scroope. She, indeed, came to the same conclusion as her friend, but she did so with much difficulty and after many inward struggles. She understood and valued the customs of the magic line. In her heart of hearts she approved of a different code of morals for men and women. That which merited instant, and as regarded this world, perpetual condemnation in a woman, might in a man be very easily forgiven. A sigh, a shake of the head, and some small innocent stratagem that might lead to a happy marriage and settlement in life with increased income, would have been her treatment of such sin for the heirs of the great and wealthy. She knew that the world could not afford to ostracise the men,--though happily it might condemn the women. Nevertheless, when she came to the single separated instance, though her heart melted with no ruth for the woman,--in such cases the woman must be seen before the ruth is felt,--though pity for Kate O'Hara did not influence her, she did acknowledge the sanctity of a gentleman's word. If, as Lady Mary told her, and as she could so well believe, the present Earl of Scroope had given to this girl a promise that he would marry her, if he had bound himself by his pledged word, as a nobleman and a gentleman, how could she bid him become a perjured knave? Sans reproche! Was he thus to begin to live and to deserve the motto of his house by the conduct of his life? But then the evil that would be done was so great! She did not for a moment doubt all that Lady Mary told her about the girl. The worst of it had indeed been admitted. She was a Roman Catholic, ill-born, ill-connected, damaged utterly by a parent so low that nothing lower could possibly be raked out of the world's gutters. And now the girl herself was--a castaway. Such a marriage as that of which Lady Mary spoke would not only injure the house of Scroope for the present generation, but would tend to its final downfall. Would it not be known throughout all England that the next Earl of Scroope would be the grandson of a convict? Might there not be questions as to the legitimacy of the assumed heir? She herself knew of noble families which had been scattered, confounded, and almost ruined by such imprudence. Hitherto the family of Scroope had been continued from generation to generation without stain,--almost without stain. It had felt it to be a fortunate thing that the late heir had died because of the pollution of his wretched marriage. And now must evil as bad befall it, worse evil perhaps, through the folly of this young man? Must that proud motto be taken down from its place in the hall from very shame? But the evil had not been done yet, and it might be that her words could save the house from ruin and disgrace. She was a woman of whom it may be said that whatever difficulty she might have in deciding a question she could recognise the necessity of a decision and could abide by it when she had made it. It was with great difficulty that she could bring herself to think that an Earl of Scroope should be false to a promise by which he had seduced a woman, but she did succeed in bringing herself to such thought. Her very heart bled within her as she acknowledged the necessity. A lie to her was abominable. A lie, to be told by herself, would have been hideous to her. A lie to be told by him, was worse. As virtue, what she called virtue, was the one thing indispensable to women, so was truth the one thing indispensable to men. And yet she must tell him to lie, and having resolved so to tell him, must use all her intellect to defend the lie,--and to insist upon it. He was determined to return to Ireland, and there was nothing that she could do to prevent his return. She could not bid him shun a danger simply because it was a danger. He was his own master, and were she to do so he would only laugh at her. Of authority with him she had none. If she spoke, he must listen. Her position would secure so much to her from courtesy,--and were she to speak of the duty which he owed to his name and to the family he could hardly laugh. She therefore sent to him a message. Would he kindly go to her in her own room? Of course he attended to her wishes and went. "You mean to leave us to-morrow, Fred," she said. We all know the peculiar solemnity of a widow's dress,--the look of self-sacrifice on the part of the woman which the dress creates; and have perhaps recognised the fact that if the woman be deterred by no necessities of oeconomy in her toilet,--as in such material circumstances the splendour is more perfect if splendour be the object,--so also is the self-sacrifice more abject. And with this widow an appearance of melancholy solemnity, almost of woe, was natural to her. She was one whose life had ever been serious, solemn, and sad. Wealth and the outward pomp of circumstances had conferred upon her a certain dignity; and with that doubtless there had reached her some feeling of satisfaction. Religion too had given her comfort, and a routine of small duties had saved her from the wretchedness of ennui. But life with her had had no laughter, and had seldom smiled. Now in the first days of her widowhood she regarded her course as run, and looked upon herself as one who, in speaking, almost spoke from the tomb. All this had its effect upon the young lord. She did inspire him with a certain awe; and though her weeds gave her no authority, they did give her weight. "Yes; I shall start to-morrow," he replied. "And you still mean to go to Ireland?" "Yes;--I must go to Ireland. I shan't stay there, you know." Then she paused a moment before she proceeded. "Shall you see--that young woman when you are there?" "I suppose I shall see her." "Pray do not think that I desire to interfere with your private affairs. I know well that I have no right to assume over you any of that affectionate authority which a mother might have,--though in truth I love you as a son." "I would treat you just as I would my own mother." "No, Fred; that cannot be so. A mother would throw her arms round you and cling to you if she saw you going into danger. A mother would follow you, hoping that she might save you." "But there is no danger." "Ah, Fred, I fear there is." "What danger?" "You are now the head of one of the oldest and the noblest families in this which in my heart I believe to be the least sinful among the sinful nations of the wicked world." "I don't quite know how that may be;--I mean about the world. Of course I understand about the family." "But you love your country?" "Oh yes. I don't think there's any place like England,--to live in." "And England is what it is because there are still some left among us who are born to high rank and who know how to live up to the standard that is required of them. If ever there was such a man, your uncle was such a one." "I'm sure he was;--just what he ought to have been." "Honourable, true, affectionate, self-denying, affable to all men, but ever conscious of his rank, giving much because much had been given to him, asserting his nobility for the benefit of those around him, proud of his order for the sake of his country, bearing his sorrows with the dignity of silence, a nobleman all over, living on to the end sans reproche! He was a man whom you may dare to imitate, though to follow him may be difficult." She spoke not loudly, but clearly, looking him full in the face as she stood motionless before him. "He was all that," said Fred, almost overpowered by the sincere solemnity of his aunt's manner. "Will you try to walk in his footsteps?" "Two men can never be like one another in that way. I shall never be what he was. But I'll endeavour to get along as well as I can." "You will remember your order?" "Yes, I will. I do remember it. Mind you, aunt, I am not glad that I belong to it. I think I do understand about it all, and will do my best. But Jack would have made a better Earl than I shall do. That's the truth." "The Lord God has placed you,--and you must pray to Him that He will enable you to do your duty in that state of life to which it has pleased Him to call you. You are here and must bear his decree; and whether it be a privilege to enjoy, you must enjoy it, or a burden to bear, you must endure it." "It is so of course." "Knowing that, you must know also how incumbent it is upon you not to defile the stock from which you are sprung." "I suppose it has been defiled," said Fred, who had been looking into the history of the family. "The ninth Earl seems to have married nobody knows whom. And his son was my uncle's grandfather." This was a blow to Lady Scroope, but she bore it with dignity and courage. "You would hardly wish it to be said that you had copied the only one of your ancestors who did amiss. The world was rougher then than it is now, and he of whom you speak was a soldier." "I'm a soldier too," said the Earl. "Oh, Fred, is it thus you answer me! He was a soldier in rough times, when there were wars. I think he married when he was with the army under Marlborough." "I have not seen anything of that kind, certainly." "Your country is at peace, and your place is here, among your tenantry, at Scroope. You will promise me, Fred, that you will not marry this girl in Ireland?" "If I do, the fault will be all with that old maid at Castle Quin." "Do not say that, Fred. It is impossible. Let her conduct have been what it may, it cannot make that right in you which would have been wrong, or that wrong which would have been right." "She's a nasty meddlesome cat." "I will not talk about her. What good would it do? You cannot at any rate be surprised at my extreme anxiety. You did promise your uncle most solemnly that you would never marry this young lady." "If I did, that ought to be enough." He was now waxing angry and his face was becoming red. He would bear a good deal from his uncle's widow, but he felt his own power and was not prepared to bear much more. "Of course I cannot bind you. I know well how impotent I am,--how powerless to exercise control. But I think, Fred, that for your uncle's sake you will not refuse to repeat your promise to me, if you intend to keep it. Why is it that I am so anxious? It is for your sake, and for the sake of a name which should be dearer to you than it is even to me." "I have no intention of marrying at all." "Do not say that." "I do say it. I do not want to keep either you or Jack in the dark as to my future life. This young lady,--of whom, by the by, neither you nor Lady Mary Quin know anything, shall not become Countess of Scroope. To that I have made up my mind." "Thank God." "But as long as she lives I will make no woman Countess of Scroope. Let Jack marry this girl that he is in love with. They shall live here and have the house to themselves if they like it. He will look after the property and shall have whatever income old Mellerby thinks proper. I will keep the promise I made to my uncle,--but the keeping of it will make it impossible for me to live here. I would prefer now that you should say no more on the subject." Then he left her, quitting the room with some stateliness in his step, as though conscious that at such a moment as this it behoved him to assume his rank. The dowager sat alone all that morning thinking of the thing she had done. She did now believe that he was positively resolved not to marry Kate O'Hara, and she believed also that she herself had fixed him in that resolution. In doing so had she or had she not committed a deadly sin? She knew almost with accuracy what had occurred on the coast of Clare. A young girl, innocent herself up to that moment, had been enticed to her ruin by words of love which had been hallowed in her ears by vows of marriage. Those vows which had possessed so deadly an efficacy, were now to be simply broken! The cruelty to her would be damnable, devilish,--surely worthy of hell if any sin of man can be so called! And she, who could not divest herself of a certain pride taken in the austere morality of her own life, she who was now a widow anxious to devote her life solely to God, had persuaded the man to this sin, in order that her successor as Countess of Scroope might not be, in her opinion, unfitting for nobility! The young lord had promised her that he would be guilty of this sin, so damnable, so devilish, telling her as he did so, that as a consequence of his promise he must continue to live a life of wickedness! In the agony of her spirit she threw herself upon her knees and implored the Lord to pardon her and to guide her. But even while kneeling before the throne of heaven she could not drive the pride of birth out of her heart. That the young Earl might be saved from the damning sin and also from the polluting marriage;--that was the prayer she prayed. CHAPTER VIII. LOOSE ABOUT THE WORLD. The Countess was seen no more on that day,--was no more seen at least by either of the two brothers. Miss Mellerby was with her now and again, but on each occasion only for a few minutes, and reported that Lady Scroope was ill and could not appear at dinner. She would, however, see her nephew before he started on the following morning. Fred himself was much affected by the interview with his aunt. No doubt he had made a former promise to his uncle, similar to that which had now been exacted from him. No doubt he had himself resolved, after what he had thought to be mature consideration that he would not marry the girl, justifying to himself this decision by the deceit which he thought had been practised upon him in regard to Captain O'Hara. Nevertheless, he felt that by what had now occurred he was bound more strongly against the marriage than he had ever been bound before. His promise to his uncle might have been regarded as being obligatory only as long as his uncle lived. His own decision he would have been at liberty to change when he pleased to do so. But, though his aunt was almost nothing to him,--was not in very truth his aunt, but only the widow of his uncle, there had been a solemnity about the engagement as he had now made it with her, which he felt to be definitely binding. He must go to Ardkill prepared to tell them absolutely the truth. He would make any arrangement they pleased as to their future joint lives, so long as it was an arrangement by which Kate should not become Countess of Scroope. He did not attempt to conceal from himself the dreadful nature of the task before him. He knew what would be the indignation of the priest. He could picture to himself the ferocity of the mother, defending her young as a lioness would her whelp. He could imagine that that dagger might again be brought from its hiding place. And, worse than all, he would see the girl prostrate in her woe, and appealing to his love and to his oaths, when the truth as to her future life should be revealed to her. But yet he did not think of shunning the task before him. He could not endure to live a coward in his own esteem. He was unlike himself and very melancholy. "It has been so good of you to remain here," he said to Sophie Mellerby. They had now become intimate and almost attached to each other as friends. If she had allowed a spark of hope to become bright within her heart in regard to the young Earl that had long since been quenched. She had acknowledged to herself that had it been possible in other respects they would not have suited each other,--and now they were friends. "I love your aunt dearly and have been very glad to be with her." "I wish you would learn to love somebody else dearly." "Perhaps I shall, some day,--somebody else; though I don't at all know who it may be." "You know whom I mean." "I suppose I do." "And why not love him? Isn't he a good fellow?" "One can't love all the good fellows, Lord Scroope." "You'll never find a better one than he is." "Did he commission you to speak for him?" "You know he didn't. You know that he would be the last man in the world to do so?" "I was surprised." "But I had a reason for speaking." "No doubt." "I don't suppose it will have any effect with you;--but it is something you ought to know. If any man of my age can be supposed to have made up his mind on such a matter, you may believe that I have made up my mind that I will--never marry." "What nonsense, Lord Scroope." "Well;--yes; perhaps it is. But I am so convinced of it myself that I shall ask my brother to come and live here--permanently,--as master of the place. As he would have to leave his regiment it would of course be necessary that his position here should be settled,--and it shall be settled." "I most sincerely hope that you will always live here yourself." "It won't suit me. Circumstances have made it impossible. If he will not do so, nor my aunt, the house must be shut up. I am most anxious that this should not be done. I shall implore him to remain here, and to be here exactly as I should have been,--had things with me not have been so very unfortunate. He will at any rate have a house to offer you, if--" "Lord Scroope!" "I know what you are going to say, Sophie." "I don't know that I am as yet disposed to marry for the sake of a house to shelter me." "Of course you would say that; but still I think that I have been right to tell you. I am sure you will believe my assurance that Jack knows nothing of all this." That same evening he said nearly the same thing to his brother, though in doing so he made no special allusion to Sophie Mellerby. "I know that there is a great deal that a fellow should do, living in such a house as this, but I am not the man to do it. It's a very good kind of life, if you happen to be up to it. I am not, but you are." "My dear Fred, you can't change the accidents of birth." "In a great measure I can; or at least we can do so between us. You can't be Lord Scroope, but you can be master of Scroope Manor." "No I can't;--and, which is more, I won't. Don't think I am uncivil." "You are uncivil, Jack." "At any rate I am not ungrateful. I only want you to understand thoroughly that such an arrangement is out of the question. In no condition of life would I care to be the locum tenens for another man. You are now five or six and twenty. At thirty you may be a married man with an absolute need for your own house." "I would execute any deed." "So that I might be enabled to keep the owner of the property out of the only place that is fit for him! It is a power which I should not use, and do not wish to possess. Believe me, Fred, that a man is bound to submit himself to the circumstances by which he is surrounded, when it is clear that they are beneficial to the world at large. There must be an Earl of Scroope, and you at present are the man." They were sitting together out upon the terrace after dinner, and for a time there was silence. His brother's arguments were too strong for the young lord, and it was out of his power to deal with one so dogmatic. But he did not forget the last words that had been spoken. It may be that "I shall not be the man very long," he said at last. "Any of us may die to-day or to-morrow," said Jack. "I have a kind of presentiment,--not that I shall die, but that I shall never see Scroope again. It seems as though I were certainly leaving for ever a place that has always been distasteful to me." "I never believe anything of presentiments." "No; of course not. You're not that sort of fellow at all. But I am. I can't think of myself as living here with a dozen old fogies about the place all doing nothing, touching their hats, my-lording me at every turn, looking respectable, but as idle as pickpockets." "You'll have to do it." "Perhaps I shall, but I don't think it." Then there was again silence for a time. "The less said about it the better, but I know that I've got a very difficult job before me in Ireland." "I don't envy you, Fred;--not that." "It is no use talking about it. It has got to be done, and the sooner done the better. What I shall do when it is done, I have not the most remote idea. Where I shall be living this day month I cannot guess. I can only say one thing certainly, and that is that I shall not come back here. There never was a fellow so loose about the world as I am." It was terrible that a young man who had it in his power to do so much good or so much evil should have had nothing to bind him to the better course! There was the motto of his house, and the promises which he had made to his uncle persuading him to that which was respectable and as he thought dull; and opposed to those influences there was an unconquerable feeling on his own part that he was altogether unfitted for the kind of life that was expected of him. Joined to this there was the fact of that unfortunate connection in Ireland from which he knew that it would be base to fly, and which, as it seemed to him, made any attempt at respectability impossible to him. Early on the following morning, as he was preparing to start, his aunt again sent for him. She came out to him in the sitting-room adjoining her bedroom and there embraced him. Her eyes were red with weeping, and her face wan with care. "Fred," she said; "dear Fred." "Good-bye, aunt. The last word I have to say is that I implore you not to leave Scroope as long as you are comfortable here." "You will come back?" "I cannot say anything certain about that." She still had hold of him with both hands and was looking into his face with loving, frightened, wistful eyes. "I know," she said, "that you will be thinking of what passed between us yesterday." "Certainly I shall remember it." "I have been praying for you, Fred; and now I tell you to look to your Father which is in Heaven for guidance, and not to take it from any poor frail sinful human being. Ask Him to keep your feet steady in the path, and your heart pure, and your thoughts free from wickedness. Oh, Fred, keep your mind and body clear before Him, and if you will kneel to Him for protection, He will show you a way through all difficulties." It was thus that she intended to tell him that his promise to her, made on the previous day, was to count for nought, and that he was to marry the girl if by no other way he could release himself from vice. But she could not bring herself to declare to him in plain terms that he had better marry Kate O'Hara, and bring his new Countess to Scroope in order that she might be fitly received by her predecessor. It might be that the Lord would still show him a way out of the two evils. But his brother was more clear of purpose with him, as they walked together out to the yard in which the young Earl was to get into his carriage. "Upon the whole, Fred, if I were you I should marry that girl." This he said quite abruptly. The young lord shook his head. "It may be that I do not know all the circumstances. If they be as I have heard them from you, I should marry her. Good-bye. Let me hear from you, when you have settled as to going anywhere." "I shall be sure to write," said Fred as he took the reins and seated him in the phaeton. His brother's advice he understood plainly, and that of his aunt he thought that he understood. But he shook his head again as he told himself that he could not now be guided by either of them. CHAPTER IX. AT LISCANNOR. The young lord slept one night at Ennis, and on the third morning after his departure from Scroope, started in his gig for Liscannor and the cliffs of Moher. He took a servant with him and a change of clothes. And as he went his heart was very heavy. He could not live a coward in his own esteem. Were it not so how willingly would he have saved himself from the misery of this journey, and have sent to his Kate to bid her come to him in England! He feared the priest, and he feared his Kate's mother;--not her dagger, but her eyes and scorching words. He altogether doubted his own powers to perform satisfactorily the task before him. He knew men who could do it. His brother Jack would do it, were it possible that his brother Jack should be in such a position. But for himself, he was conscious of a softness of heart, a feminine tenderness, which,--to do him justice,--he did not mistake for sincerity, that rendered him unfit for the task before him. The farther he journeyed from Scroope and the nearer that he found himself to the cliffs the stronger did the feeling grow within him, till it had become almost

go

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

women,--who in all other views of life are perhaps tender and soft-natured,--is one of the marvels of our social system. It is as though a certain line were drawn to include all women,--a line, but, alas, little more than a line,--by overstepping which, or rather by being known to have overstepped it, a woman ceases to be a woman in the estimation of her own sex. That the existence of this feeling has strong effect in saving women from passing the line, none of us can doubt. That its general tendency may be good rather than evil, is possible. But the hardness necessary to preserve the rule, a hardness which must be exclusively feminine but which is seldom wanting, is a marvellous feature in the female character. Lady Mary Quin probably thought but little on the subject. The women in the cottage on the cliff, who were befriended by Father Marty, were to her dangerous scheming Roman Catholic adventurers. The proper triumph of Protestant virtue required that they should fail in their adventures. She had always known that there would be something disreputable heard of them sooner or later. When the wretched Captain came into the neighbourhood,--and she soon heard of his coming,--she was gratified by feeling that her convictions had been correct. When the sad tidings as to poor Kate reached her ears, she had "known that it would be so." That such a girl should be made Countess of Scroope in reward for her wickedness would be to her an event horrible, almost contrary to Divine Providence,--a testimony that the Evil One was being allowed peculiar power at the moment, and would no doubt have been used in her own circles to show the ruin that had been brought upon the country by Catholic emancipation. She did not for a moment doubt that the present Earl should be encouraged to break any promises of marriage to the making of which he might have been allured. But it was not so with Lady Scroope. She, indeed, came to the same conclusion as her friend, but she did so with much difficulty and after many inward struggles. She understood and valued the customs of the magic line. In her heart of hearts she approved of a different code of morals for men and women. That which merited instant, and as regarded this world, perpetual condemnation in a woman, might in a man be very easily forgiven. A sigh, a shake of the head, and some small innocent stratagem that might lead to a happy marriage and settlement in life with increased income, would have been her treatment of such sin for the heirs of the great and wealthy. She knew that the world could not afford to ostracise the men,--though happily it might condemn the women. Nevertheless, when she came to the single separated instance, though her heart melted with no ruth for the woman,--in such cases the woman must be seen before the ruth is felt,--though pity for Kate O'Hara did not influence her, she did acknowledge the sanctity of a gentleman's word. If, as Lady Mary told her, and as she could so well believe, the present Earl of Scroope had given to this girl a promise that he would marry her, if he had bound himself by his pledged word, as a nobleman and a gentleman, how could she bid him become a perjured knave? Sans reproche! Was he thus to begin to live and to deserve the motto of his house by the conduct of his life? But then the evil that would be done was so great! She did not for a moment doubt all that Lady Mary told her about the girl. The worst of it had indeed been admitted. She was a Roman Catholic, ill-born, ill-connected, damaged utterly by a parent so low that nothing lower could possibly be raked out of the world's gutters. And now the girl herself was--a castaway. Such a marriage as that of which Lady Mary spoke would not only injure the house of Scroope for the present generation, but would tend to its final downfall. Would it not be known throughout all England that the next Earl of Scroope would be the grandson of a convict? Might there not be questions as to the legitimacy of the assumed heir? She herself knew of noble families which had been scattered, confounded, and almost ruined by such imprudence. Hitherto the family of Scroope had been continued from generation to generation without stain,--almost without stain. It had felt it to be a fortunate thing that the late heir had died because of the pollution of his wretched marriage. And now must evil as bad befall it, worse evil perhaps, through the folly of this young man? Must that proud motto be taken down from its place in the hall from very shame? But the evil had not been done yet, and it might be that her words could save the house from ruin and disgrace. She was a woman of whom it may be said that whatever difficulty she might have in deciding a question she could recognise the necessity of a decision and could abide by it when she had made it. It was with great difficulty that she could bring herself to think that an Earl of Scroope should be false to a promise by which he had seduced a woman, but she did succeed in bringing herself to such thought. Her very heart bled within her as she acknowledged the necessity. A lie to her was abominable. A lie, to be told by herself, would have been hideous to her. A lie to be told by him, was worse. As virtue, what she called virtue, was the one thing indispensable to women, so was truth the one thing indispensable to men. And yet she must tell him to lie, and having resolved so to tell him, must use all her intellect to defend the lie,--and to insist upon it. He was determined to return to Ireland, and there was nothing that she could do to prevent his return. She could not bid him shun a danger simply because it was a danger. He was his own master, and were she to do so he would only laugh at her. Of authority with him she had none. If she spoke, he must listen. Her position would secure so much to her from courtesy,--and were she to speak of the duty which he owed to his name and to the family he could hardly laugh. She therefore sent to him a message. Would he kindly go to her in her own room? Of course he attended to her wishes and went. "You mean to leave us to-morrow, Fred," she said. We all know the peculiar solemnity of a widow's dress,--the look of self-sacrifice on the part of the woman which the dress creates; and have perhaps recognised the fact that if the woman be deterred by no necessities of oeconomy in her toilet,--as in such material circumstances the splendour is more perfect if splendour be the object,--so also is the self-sacrifice more abject. And with this widow an appearance of melancholy solemnity, almost of woe, was natural to her. She was one whose life had ever been serious, solemn, and sad. Wealth and the outward pomp of circumstances had conferred upon her a certain dignity; and with that doubtless there had reached her some feeling of satisfaction. Religion too had given her comfort, and a routine of small duties had saved her from the wretchedness of ennui. But life with her had had no laughter, and had seldom smiled. Now in the first days of her widowhood she regarded her course as run, and looked upon herself as one who, in speaking, almost spoke from the tomb. All this had its effect upon the young lord. She did inspire him with a certain awe; and though her weeds gave her no authority, they did give her weight. "Yes; I shall start to-morrow," he replied. "And you still mean to go to Ireland?" "Yes;--I must go to Ireland. I shan't stay there, you know." Then she paused a moment before she proceeded. "Shall you see--that young woman when you are there?" "I suppose I shall see her." "Pray do not think that I desire to interfere with your private affairs. I know well that I have no right to assume over you any of that affectionate authority which a mother might have,--though in truth I love you as a son." "I would treat you just as I would my own mother." "No, Fred; that cannot be so. A mother would throw her arms round you and cling to you if she saw you going into danger. A mother would follow you, hoping that she might save you." "But there is no danger." "Ah, Fred, I fear there is." "What danger?" "You are now the head of one of the oldest and the noblest families in this which in my heart I believe to be the least sinful among the sinful nations of the wicked world." "I don't quite know how that may be;--I mean about the world. Of course I understand about the family." "But you love your country?" "Oh yes. I don't think there's any place like England,--to live in." "And England is what it is because there are still some left among us who are born to high rank and who know how to live up to the standard that is required of them. If ever there was such a man, your uncle was such a one." "I'm sure he was;--just what he ought to have been." "Honourable, true, affectionate, self-denying, affable to all men, but ever conscious of his rank, giving much because much had been given to him, asserting his nobility for the benefit of those around him, proud of his order for the sake of his country, bearing his sorrows with the dignity of silence, a nobleman all over, living on to the end sans reproche! He was a man whom you may dare to imitate, though to follow him may be difficult." She spoke not loudly, but clearly, looking him full in the face as she stood motionless before him. "He was all that," said Fred, almost overpowered by the sincere solemnity of his aunt's manner. "Will you try to walk in his footsteps?" "Two men can never be like one another in that way. I shall never be what he was. But I'll endeavour to get along as well as I can." "You will remember your order?" "Yes, I will. I do remember it. Mind you, aunt, I am not glad that I belong to it. I think I do understand about it all, and will do my best. But Jack would have made a better Earl than I shall do. That's the truth." "The Lord God has placed you,--and you must pray to Him that He will enable you to do your duty in that state of life to which it has pleased Him to call you. You are here and must bear his decree; and whether it be a privilege to enjoy, you must enjoy it, or a burden to bear, you must endure it." "It is so of course." "Knowing that, you must know also how incumbent it is upon you not to defile the stock from which you are sprung." "I suppose it has been defiled," said Fred, who had been looking into the history of the family. "The ninth Earl seems to have married nobody knows whom. And his son was my uncle's grandfather." This was a blow to Lady Scroope, but she bore it with dignity and courage. "You would hardly wish it to be said that you had copied the only one of your ancestors who did amiss. The world was rougher then than it is now, and he of whom you speak was a soldier." "I'm a soldier too," said the Earl. "Oh, Fred, is it thus you answer me! He was a soldier in rough times, when there were wars. I think he married when he was with the army under Marlborough." "I have not seen anything of that kind, certainly." "Your country is at peace, and your place is here, among your tenantry, at Scroope. You will promise me, Fred, that you will not marry this girl in Ireland?" "If I do, the fault will be all with that old maid at Castle Quin." "Do not say that, Fred. It is impossible. Let her conduct have been what it may, it cannot make that right in you which would have been wrong, or that wrong which would have been right." "She's a nasty meddlesome cat." "I will not talk about her. What good would it do? You cannot at any rate be surprised at my extreme anxiety. You did promise your uncle most solemnly that you would never marry this young lady." "If I did, that ought to be enough." He was now waxing angry and his face was becoming red. He would bear a good deal from his uncle's widow, but he felt his own power and was not prepared to bear much more. "Of course I cannot bind you. I know well how impotent I am,--how powerless to exercise control. But I think, Fred, that for your uncle's sake you will not refuse to repeat your promise to me, if you intend to keep it. Why is it that I am so anxious? It is for your sake, and for the sake of a name which should be dearer to you than it is even to me." "I have no intention of marrying at all." "Do not say that." "I do say it. I do not want to keep either you or Jack in the dark as to my future life. This young lady,--of whom, by the by, neither you nor Lady Mary Quin know anything, shall not become Countess of Scroope. To that I have made up my mind." "Thank God." "But as long as she lives I will make no woman Countess of Scroope. Let Jack marry this girl that he is in love with. They shall live here and have the house to themselves if they like it. He will look after the property and shall have whatever income old Mellerby thinks proper. I will keep the promise I made to my uncle,--but the keeping of it will make it impossible for me to live here. I would prefer now that you should say no more on the subject." Then he left her, quitting the room with some stateliness in his step, as though conscious that at such a moment as this it behoved him to assume his rank. The dowager sat alone all that morning thinking of the thing she had done. She did now believe that he was positively resolved not to marry Kate O'Hara, and she believed also that she herself had fixed him in that resolution. In doing so had she or had she not committed a deadly sin? She knew almost with accuracy what had occurred on the coast of Clare. A young girl, innocent herself up to that moment, had been enticed to her ruin by words of love which had been hallowed in her ears by vows of marriage. Those vows which had possessed so deadly an efficacy, were now to be simply broken! The cruelty to her would be damnable, devilish,--surely worthy of hell if any sin of man can be so called! And she, who could not divest herself of a certain pride taken in the austere morality of her own life, she who was now a widow anxious to devote her life solely to God, had persuaded the man to this sin, in order that her successor as Countess of Scroope might not be, in her opinion, unfitting for nobility! The young lord had promised her that he would be guilty of this sin, so damnable, so devilish, telling her as he did so, that as a consequence of his promise he must continue to live a life of wickedness! In the agony of her spirit she threw herself upon her knees and implored the Lord to pardon her and to guide her. But even while kneeling before the throne of heaven she could not drive the pride of birth out of her heart. That the young Earl might be saved from the damning sin and also from the polluting marriage;--that was the prayer she prayed. CHAPTER VIII. LOOSE ABOUT THE WORLD. The Countess was seen no more on that day,--was no more seen at least by either of the two brothers. Miss Mellerby was with her now and again, but on each occasion only for a few minutes, and reported that Lady Scroope was ill and could not appear at dinner. She would, however, see her nephew before he started on the following morning. Fred himself was much affected by the interview with his aunt. No doubt he had made a former promise to his uncle, similar to that which had now been exacted from him. No doubt he had himself resolved, after what he had thought to be mature consideration that he would not marry the girl, justifying to himself this decision by the deceit which he thought had been practised upon him in regard to Captain O'Hara. Nevertheless, he felt that by what had now occurred he was bound more strongly against the marriage than he had ever been bound before. His promise to his uncle might have been regarded as being obligatory only as long as his uncle lived. His own decision he would have been at liberty to change when he pleased to do so. But, though his aunt was almost nothing to him,--was not in very truth his aunt, but only the widow of his uncle, there had been a solemnity about the engagement as he had now made it with her, which he felt to be definitely binding. He must go to Ardkill prepared to tell them absolutely the truth. He would make any arrangement they pleased as to their future joint lives, so long as it was an arrangement by which Kate should not become Countess of Scroope. He did not attempt to conceal from himself the dreadful nature of the task before him. He knew what would be the indignation of the priest. He could picture to himself the ferocity of the mother, defending her young as a lioness would her whelp. He could imagine that that dagger might again be brought from its hiding place. And, worse than all, he would see the girl prostrate in her woe, and appealing to his love and to his oaths, when the truth as to her future life should be revealed to her. But yet he did not think of shunning the task before him. He could not endure to live a coward in his own esteem. He was unlike himself and very melancholy. "It has been so good of you to remain here," he said to Sophie Mellerby. They had now become intimate and almost attached to each other as friends. If she had allowed a spark of hope to become bright within her heart in regard to the young Earl that had long since been quenched. She had acknowledged to herself that had it been possible in other respects they would not have suited each other,--and now they were friends. "I love your aunt dearly and have been very glad to be with her." "I wish you would learn to love somebody else dearly." "Perhaps I shall, some day,--somebody else; though I don't at all know who it may be." "You know whom I mean." "I suppose I do." "And why not love him? Isn't he a good fellow?" "One can't love all the good fellows, Lord Scroope." "You'll never find a better one than he is." "Did he commission you to speak for him?" "You know he didn't. You know that he would be the last man in the world to do so?" "I was surprised." "But I had a reason for speaking." "No doubt." "I don't suppose it will have any effect with you;--but it is something you ought to know. If any man of my age can be supposed to have made up his mind on such a matter, you may believe that I have made up my mind that I will--never marry." "What nonsense, Lord Scroope." "Well;--yes; perhaps it is. But I am so convinced of it myself that I shall ask my brother to come and live here--permanently,--as master of the place. As he would have to leave his regiment it would of course be necessary that his position here should be settled,--and it shall be settled." "I most sincerely hope that you will always live here yourself." "It won't suit me. Circumstances have made it impossible. If he will not do so, nor my aunt, the house must be shut up. I am most anxious that this should not be done. I shall implore him to remain here, and to be here exactly as I should have been,--had things with me not have been so very unfortunate. He will at any rate have a house to offer you, if--" "Lord Scroope!" "I know what you are going to say, Sophie." "I don't know that I am as yet disposed to marry for the sake of a house to shelter me." "Of course you would say that; but still I think that I have been right to tell you. I am sure you will believe my assurance that Jack knows nothing of all this." That same evening he said nearly the same thing to his brother, though in doing so he made no special allusion to Sophie Mellerby. "I know that there is a great deal that a fellow should do, living in such a house as this, but I am not the man to do it. It's a very good kind of life, if you happen to be up to it. I am not, but you are." "My dear Fred, you can't change the accidents of birth." "In a great measure I can; or at least we can do so between us. You can't be Lord Scroope, but you can be master of Scroope Manor." "No I can't;--and, which is more, I won't. Don't think I am uncivil." "You are uncivil, Jack." "At any rate I am not ungrateful. I only want you to understand thoroughly that such an arrangement is out of the question. In no condition of life would I care to be the locum tenens for another man. You are now five or six and twenty. At thirty you may be a married man with an absolute need for your own house." "I would execute any deed." "So that I might be enabled to keep the owner of the property out of the only place that is fit for him! It is a power which I should not use, and do not wish to possess. Believe me, Fred, that a man is bound to submit himself to the circumstances by which he is surrounded, when it is clear that they are beneficial to the world at large. There must be an Earl of Scroope, and you at present are the man." They were sitting together out upon the terrace after dinner, and for a time there was silence. His brother's arguments were too strong for the young lord, and it was out of his power to deal with one so dogmatic. But he did not forget the last words that had been spoken. It may be that "I shall not be the man very long," he said at last. "Any of us may die to-day or to-morrow," said Jack. "I have a kind of presentiment,--not that I shall die, but that I shall never see Scroope again. It seems as though I were certainly leaving for ever a place that has always been distasteful to me." "I never believe anything of presentiments." "No; of course not. You're not that sort of fellow at all. But I am. I can't think of myself as living here with a dozen old fogies about the place all doing nothing, touching their hats, my-lording me at every turn, looking respectable, but as idle as pickpockets." "You'll have to do it." "Perhaps I shall, but I don't think it." Then there was again silence for a time. "The less said about it the better, but I know that I've got a very difficult job before me in Ireland." "I don't envy you, Fred;--not that." "It is no use talking about it. It has got to be done, and the sooner done the better. What I shall do when it is done, I have not the most remote idea. Where I shall be living this day month I cannot guess. I can only say one thing certainly, and that is that I shall not come back here. There never was a fellow so loose about the world as I am." It was terrible that a young man who had it in his power to do so much good or so much evil should have had nothing to bind him to the better course! There was the motto of his house, and the promises which he had made to his uncle persuading him to that which was respectable and as he thought dull; and opposed to those influences there was an unconquerable feeling on his own part that he was altogether unfitted for the kind of life that was expected of him. Joined to this there was the fact of that unfortunate connection in Ireland from which he knew that it would be base to fly, and which, as it seemed to him, made any attempt at respectability impossible to him. Early on the following morning, as he was preparing to start, his aunt again sent for him. She came out to him in the sitting-room adjoining her bedroom and there embraced him. Her eyes were red with weeping, and her face wan with care. "Fred," she said; "dear Fred." "Good-bye, aunt. The last word I have to say is that I implore you not to leave Scroope as long as you are comfortable here." "You will come back?" "I cannot say anything certain about that." She still had hold of him with both hands and was looking into his face with loving, frightened, wistful eyes. "I know," she said, "that you will be thinking of what passed between us yesterday." "Certainly I shall remember it." "I have been praying for you, Fred; and now I tell you to look to your Father which is in Heaven for guidance, and not to take it from any poor frail sinful human being. Ask Him to keep your feet steady in the path, and your heart pure, and your thoughts free from wickedness. Oh, Fred, keep your mind and body clear before Him, and if you will kneel to Him for protection, He will show you a way through all difficulties." It was thus that she intended to tell him that his promise to her, made on the previous day, was to count for nought, and that he was to marry the girl if by no other way he could release himself from vice. But she could not bring herself to declare to him in plain terms that he had better marry Kate O'Hara, and bring his new Countess to Scroope in order that she might be fitly received by her predecessor. It might be that the Lord would still show him a way out of the two evils. But his brother was more clear of purpose with him, as they walked together out to the yard in which the young Earl was to get into his carriage. "Upon the whole, Fred, if I were you I should marry that girl." This he said quite abruptly. The young lord shook his head. "It may be that I do not know all the circumstances. If they be as I have heard them from you, I should marry her. Good-bye. Let me hear from you, when you have settled as to going anywhere." "I shall be sure to write," said Fred as he took the reins and seated him in the phaeton. His brother's advice he understood plainly, and that of his aunt he thought that he understood. But he shook his head again as he told himself that he could not now be guided by either of them. CHAPTER IX. AT LISCANNOR. The young lord slept one night at Ennis, and on the third morning after his departure from Scroope, started in his gig for Liscannor and the cliffs of Moher. He took a servant with him and a change of clothes. And as he went his heart was very heavy. He could not live a coward in his own esteem. Were it not so how willingly would he have saved himself from the misery of this journey, and have sent to his Kate to bid her come to him in England! He feared the priest, and he feared his Kate's mother;--not her dagger, but her eyes and scorching words. He altogether doubted his own powers to perform satisfactorily the task before him. He knew men who could do it. His brother Jack would do it, were it possible that his brother Jack should be in such a position. But for himself, he was conscious of a softness of heart, a feminine tenderness, which,--to do him justice,--he did not mistake for sincerity, that rendered him unfit for the task before him. The farther he journeyed from Scroope and the nearer that he found himself to the cliffs the stronger did the feeling grow within him, till it had become almost

fixing

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

women,--who in all other views of life are perhaps tender and soft-natured,--is one of the marvels of our social system. It is as though a certain line were drawn to include all women,--a line, but, alas, little more than a line,--by overstepping which, or rather by being known to have overstepped it, a woman ceases to be a woman in the estimation of her own sex. That the existence of this feeling has strong effect in saving women from passing the line, none of us can doubt. That its general tendency may be good rather than evil, is possible. But the hardness necessary to preserve the rule, a hardness which must be exclusively feminine but which is seldom wanting, is a marvellous feature in the female character. Lady Mary Quin probably thought but little on the subject. The women in the cottage on the cliff, who were befriended by Father Marty, were to her dangerous scheming Roman Catholic adventurers. The proper triumph of Protestant virtue required that they should fail in their adventures. She had always known that there would be something disreputable heard of them sooner or later. When the wretched Captain came into the neighbourhood,--and she soon heard of his coming,--she was gratified by feeling that her convictions had been correct. When the sad tidings as to poor Kate reached her ears, she had "known that it would be so." That such a girl should be made Countess of Scroope in reward for her wickedness would be to her an event horrible, almost contrary to Divine Providence,--a testimony that the Evil One was being allowed peculiar power at the moment, and would no doubt have been used in her own circles to show the ruin that had been brought upon the country by Catholic emancipation. She did not for a moment doubt that the present Earl should be encouraged to break any promises of marriage to the making of which he might have been allured. But it was not so with Lady Scroope. She, indeed, came to the same conclusion as her friend, but she did so with much difficulty and after many inward struggles. She understood and valued the customs of the magic line. In her heart of hearts she approved of a different code of morals for men and women. That which merited instant, and as regarded this world, perpetual condemnation in a woman, might in a man be very easily forgiven. A sigh, a shake of the head, and some small innocent stratagem that might lead to a happy marriage and settlement in life with increased income, would have been her treatment of such sin for the heirs of the great and wealthy. She knew that the world could not afford to ostracise the men,--though happily it might condemn the women. Nevertheless, when she came to the single separated instance, though her heart melted with no ruth for the woman,--in such cases the woman must be seen before the ruth is felt,--though pity for Kate O'Hara did not influence her, she did acknowledge the sanctity of a gentleman's word. If, as Lady Mary told her, and as she could so well believe, the present Earl of Scroope had given to this girl a promise that he would marry her, if he had bound himself by his pledged word, as a nobleman and a gentleman, how could she bid him become a perjured knave? Sans reproche! Was he thus to begin to live and to deserve the motto of his house by the conduct of his life? But then the evil that would be done was so great! She did not for a moment doubt all that Lady Mary told her about the girl. The worst of it had indeed been admitted. She was a Roman Catholic, ill-born, ill-connected, damaged utterly by a parent so low that nothing lower could possibly be raked out of the world's gutters. And now the girl herself was--a castaway. Such a marriage as that of which Lady Mary spoke would not only injure the house of Scroope for the present generation, but would tend to its final downfall. Would it not be known throughout all England that the next Earl of Scroope would be the grandson of a convict? Might there not be questions as to the legitimacy of the assumed heir? She herself knew of noble families which had been scattered, confounded, and almost ruined by such imprudence. Hitherto the family of Scroope had been continued from generation to generation without stain,--almost without stain. It had felt it to be a fortunate thing that the late heir had died because of the pollution of his wretched marriage. And now must evil as bad befall it, worse evil perhaps, through the folly of this young man? Must that proud motto be taken down from its place in the hall from very shame? But the evil had not been done yet, and it might be that her words could save the house from ruin and disgrace. She was a woman of whom it may be said that whatever difficulty she might have in deciding a question she could recognise the necessity of a decision and could abide by it when she had made it. It was with great difficulty that she could bring herself to think that an Earl of Scroope should be false to a promise by which he had seduced a woman, but she did succeed in bringing herself to such thought. Her very heart bled within her as she acknowledged the necessity. A lie to her was abominable. A lie, to be told by herself, would have been hideous to her. A lie to be told by him, was worse. As virtue, what she called virtue, was the one thing indispensable to women, so was truth the one thing indispensable to men. And yet she must tell him to lie, and having resolved so to tell him, must use all her intellect to defend the lie,--and to insist upon it. He was determined to return to Ireland, and there was nothing that she could do to prevent his return. She could not bid him shun a danger simply because it was a danger. He was his own master, and were she to do so he would only laugh at her. Of authority with him she had none. If she spoke, he must listen. Her position would secure so much to her from courtesy,--and were she to speak of the duty which he owed to his name and to the family he could hardly laugh. She therefore sent to him a message. Would he kindly go to her in her own room? Of course he attended to her wishes and went. "You mean to leave us to-morrow, Fred," she said. We all know the peculiar solemnity of a widow's dress,--the look of self-sacrifice on the part of the woman which the dress creates; and have perhaps recognised the fact that if the woman be deterred by no necessities of oeconomy in her toilet,--as in such material circumstances the splendour is more perfect if splendour be the object,--so also is the self-sacrifice more abject. And with this widow an appearance of melancholy solemnity, almost of woe, was natural to her. She was one whose life had ever been serious, solemn, and sad. Wealth and the outward pomp of circumstances had conferred upon her a certain dignity; and with that doubtless there had reached her some feeling of satisfaction. Religion too had given her comfort, and a routine of small duties had saved her from the wretchedness of ennui. But life with her had had no laughter, and had seldom smiled. Now in the first days of her widowhood she regarded her course as run, and looked upon herself as one who, in speaking, almost spoke from the tomb. All this had its effect upon the young lord. She did inspire him with a certain awe; and though her weeds gave her no authority, they did give her weight. "Yes; I shall start to-morrow," he replied. "And you still mean to go to Ireland?" "Yes;--I must go to Ireland. I shan't stay there, you know." Then she paused a moment before she proceeded. "Shall you see--that young woman when you are there?" "I suppose I shall see her." "Pray do not think that I desire to interfere with your private affairs. I know well that I have no right to assume over you any of that affectionate authority which a mother might have,--though in truth I love you as a son." "I would treat you just as I would my own mother." "No, Fred; that cannot be so. A mother would throw her arms round you and cling to you if she saw you going into danger. A mother would follow you, hoping that she might save you." "But there is no danger." "Ah, Fred, I fear there is." "What danger?" "You are now the head of one of the oldest and the noblest families in this which in my heart I believe to be the least sinful among the sinful nations of the wicked world." "I don't quite know how that may be;--I mean about the world. Of course I understand about the family." "But you love your country?" "Oh yes. I don't think there's any place like England,--to live in." "And England is what it is because there are still some left among us who are born to high rank and who know how to live up to the standard that is required of them. If ever there was such a man, your uncle was such a one." "I'm sure he was;--just what he ought to have been." "Honourable, true, affectionate, self-denying, affable to all men, but ever conscious of his rank, giving much because much had been given to him, asserting his nobility for the benefit of those around him, proud of his order for the sake of his country, bearing his sorrows with the dignity of silence, a nobleman all over, living on to the end sans reproche! He was a man whom you may dare to imitate, though to follow him may be difficult." She spoke not loudly, but clearly, looking him full in the face as she stood motionless before him. "He was all that," said Fred, almost overpowered by the sincere solemnity of his aunt's manner. "Will you try to walk in his footsteps?" "Two men can never be like one another in that way. I shall never be what he was. But I'll endeavour to get along as well as I can." "You will remember your order?" "Yes, I will. I do remember it. Mind you, aunt, I am not glad that I belong to it. I think I do understand about it all, and will do my best. But Jack would have made a better Earl than I shall do. That's the truth." "The Lord God has placed you,--and you must pray to Him that He will enable you to do your duty in that state of life to which it has pleased Him to call you. You are here and must bear his decree; and whether it be a privilege to enjoy, you must enjoy it, or a burden to bear, you must endure it." "It is so of course." "Knowing that, you must know also how incumbent it is upon you not to defile the stock from which you are sprung." "I suppose it has been defiled," said Fred, who had been looking into the history of the family. "The ninth Earl seems to have married nobody knows whom. And his son was my uncle's grandfather." This was a blow to Lady Scroope, but she bore it with dignity and courage. "You would hardly wish it to be said that you had copied the only one of your ancestors who did amiss. The world was rougher then than it is now, and he of whom you speak was a soldier." "I'm a soldier too," said the Earl. "Oh, Fred, is it thus you answer me! He was a soldier in rough times, when there were wars. I think he married when he was with the army under Marlborough." "I have not seen anything of that kind, certainly." "Your country is at peace, and your place is here, among your tenantry, at Scroope. You will promise me, Fred, that you will not marry this girl in Ireland?" "If I do, the fault will be all with that old maid at Castle Quin." "Do not say that, Fred. It is impossible. Let her conduct have been what it may, it cannot make that right in you which would have been wrong, or that wrong which would have been right." "She's a nasty meddlesome cat." "I will not talk about her. What good would it do? You cannot at any rate be surprised at my extreme anxiety. You did promise your uncle most solemnly that you would never marry this young lady." "If I did, that ought to be enough." He was now waxing angry and his face was becoming red. He would bear a good deal from his uncle's widow, but he felt his own power and was not prepared to bear much more. "Of course I cannot bind you. I know well how impotent I am,--how powerless to exercise control. But I think, Fred, that for your uncle's sake you will not refuse to repeat your promise to me, if you intend to keep it. Why is it that I am so anxious? It is for your sake, and for the sake of a name which should be dearer to you than it is even to me." "I have no intention of marrying at all." "Do not say that." "I do say it. I do not want to keep either you or Jack in the dark as to my future life. This young lady,--of whom, by the by, neither you nor Lady Mary Quin know anything, shall not become Countess of Scroope. To that I have made up my mind." "Thank God." "But as long as she lives I will make no woman Countess of Scroope. Let Jack marry this girl that he is in love with. They shall live here and have the house to themselves if they like it. He will look after the property and shall have whatever income old Mellerby thinks proper. I will keep the promise I made to my uncle,--but the keeping of it will make it impossible for me to live here. I would prefer now that you should say no more on the subject." Then he left her, quitting the room with some stateliness in his step, as though conscious that at such a moment as this it behoved him to assume his rank. The dowager sat alone all that morning thinking of the thing she had done. She did now believe that he was positively resolved not to marry Kate O'Hara, and she believed also that she herself had fixed him in that resolution. In doing so had she or had she not committed a deadly sin? She knew almost with accuracy what had occurred on the coast of Clare. A young girl, innocent herself up to that moment, had been enticed to her ruin by words of love which had been hallowed in her ears by vows of marriage. Those vows which had possessed so deadly an efficacy, were now to be simply broken! The cruelty to her would be damnable, devilish,--surely worthy of hell if any sin of man can be so called! And she, who could not divest herself of a certain pride taken in the austere morality of her own life, she who was now a widow anxious to devote her life solely to God, had persuaded the man to this sin, in order that her successor as Countess of Scroope might not be, in her opinion, unfitting for nobility! The young lord had promised her that he would be guilty of this sin, so damnable, so devilish, telling her as he did so, that as a consequence of his promise he must continue to live a life of wickedness! In the agony of her spirit she threw herself upon her knees and implored the Lord to pardon her and to guide her. But even while kneeling before the throne of heaven she could not drive the pride of birth out of her heart. That the young Earl might be saved from the damning sin and also from the polluting marriage;--that was the prayer she prayed. CHAPTER VIII. LOOSE ABOUT THE WORLD. The Countess was seen no more on that day,--was no more seen at least by either of the two brothers. Miss Mellerby was with her now and again, but on each occasion only for a few minutes, and reported that Lady Scroope was ill and could not appear at dinner. She would, however, see her nephew before he started on the following morning. Fred himself was much affected by the interview with his aunt. No doubt he had made a former promise to his uncle, similar to that which had now been exacted from him. No doubt he had himself resolved, after what he had thought to be mature consideration that he would not marry the girl, justifying to himself this decision by the deceit which he thought had been practised upon him in regard to Captain O'Hara. Nevertheless, he felt that by what had now occurred he was bound more strongly against the marriage than he had ever been bound before. His promise to his uncle might have been regarded as being obligatory only as long as his uncle lived. His own decision he would have been at liberty to change when he pleased to do so. But, though his aunt was almost nothing to him,--was not in very truth his aunt, but only the widow of his uncle, there had been a solemnity about the engagement as he had now made it with her, which he felt to be definitely binding. He must go to Ardkill prepared to tell them absolutely the truth. He would make any arrangement they pleased as to their future joint lives, so long as it was an arrangement by which Kate should not become Countess of Scroope. He did not attempt to conceal from himself the dreadful nature of the task before him. He knew what would be the indignation of the priest. He could picture to himself the ferocity of the mother, defending her young as a lioness would her whelp. He could imagine that that dagger might again be brought from its hiding place. And, worse than all, he would see the girl prostrate in her woe, and appealing to his love and to his oaths, when the truth as to her future life should be revealed to her. But yet he did not think of shunning the task before him. He could not endure to live a coward in his own esteem. He was unlike himself and very melancholy. "It has been so good of you to remain here," he said to Sophie Mellerby. They had now become intimate and almost attached to each other as friends. If she had allowed a spark of hope to become bright within her heart in regard to the young Earl that had long since been quenched. She had acknowledged to herself that had it been possible in other respects they would not have suited each other,--and now they were friends. "I love your aunt dearly and have been very glad to be with her." "I wish you would learn to love somebody else dearly." "Perhaps I shall, some day,--somebody else; though I don't at all know who it may be." "You know whom I mean." "I suppose I do." "And why not love him? Isn't he a good fellow?" "One can't love all the good fellows, Lord Scroope." "You'll never find a better one than he is." "Did he commission you to speak for him?" "You know he didn't. You know that he would be the last man in the world to do so?" "I was surprised." "But I had a reason for speaking." "No doubt." "I don't suppose it will have any effect with you;--but it is something you ought to know. If any man of my age can be supposed to have made up his mind on such a matter, you may believe that I have made up my mind that I will--never marry." "What nonsense, Lord Scroope." "Well;--yes; perhaps it is. But I am so convinced of it myself that I shall ask my brother to come and live here--permanently,--as master of the place. As he would have to leave his regiment it would of course be necessary that his position here should be settled,--and it shall be settled." "I most sincerely hope that you will always live here yourself." "It won't suit me. Circumstances have made it impossible. If he will not do so, nor my aunt, the house must be shut up. I am most anxious that this should not be done. I shall implore him to remain here, and to be here exactly as I should have been,--had things with me not have been so very unfortunate. He will at any rate have a house to offer you, if--" "Lord Scroope!" "I know what you are going to say, Sophie." "I don't know that I am as yet disposed to marry for the sake of a house to shelter me." "Of course you would say that; but still I think that I have been right to tell you. I am sure you will believe my assurance that Jack knows nothing of all this." That same evening he said nearly the same thing to his brother, though in doing so he made no special allusion to Sophie Mellerby. "I know that there is a great deal that a fellow should do, living in such a house as this, but I am not the man to do it. It's a very good kind of life, if you happen to be up to it. I am not, but you are." "My dear Fred, you can't change the accidents of birth." "In a great measure I can; or at least we can do so between us. You can't be Lord Scroope, but you can be master of Scroope Manor." "No I can't;--and, which is more, I won't. Don't think I am uncivil." "You are uncivil, Jack." "At any rate I am not ungrateful. I only want you to understand thoroughly that such an arrangement is out of the question. In no condition of life would I care to be the locum tenens for another man. You are now five or six and twenty. At thirty you may be a married man with an absolute need for your own house." "I would execute any deed." "So that I might be enabled to keep the owner of the property out of the only place that is fit for him! It is a power which I should not use, and do not wish to possess. Believe me, Fred, that a man is bound to submit himself to the circumstances by which he is surrounded, when it is clear that they are beneficial to the world at large. There must be an Earl of Scroope, and you at present are the man." They were sitting together out upon the terrace after dinner, and for a time there was silence. His brother's arguments were too strong for the young lord, and it was out of his power to deal with one so dogmatic. But he did not forget the last words that had been spoken. It may be that "I shall not be the man very long," he said at last. "Any of us may die to-day or to-morrow," said Jack. "I have a kind of presentiment,--not that I shall die, but that I shall never see Scroope again. It seems as though I were certainly leaving for ever a place that has always been distasteful to me." "I never believe anything of presentiments." "No; of course not. You're not that sort of fellow at all. But I am. I can't think of myself as living here with a dozen old fogies about the place all doing nothing, touching their hats, my-lording me at every turn, looking respectable, but as idle as pickpockets." "You'll have to do it." "Perhaps I shall, but I don't think it." Then there was again silence for a time. "The less said about it the better, but I know that I've got a very difficult job before me in Ireland." "I don't envy you, Fred;--not that." "It is no use talking about it. It has got to be done, and the sooner done the better. What I shall do when it is done, I have not the most remote idea. Where I shall be living this day month I cannot guess. I can only say one thing certainly, and that is that I shall not come back here. There never was a fellow so loose about the world as I am." It was terrible that a young man who had it in his power to do so much good or so much evil should have had nothing to bind him to the better course! There was the motto of his house, and the promises which he had made to his uncle persuading him to that which was respectable and as he thought dull; and opposed to those influences there was an unconquerable feeling on his own part that he was altogether unfitted for the kind of life that was expected of him. Joined to this there was the fact of that unfortunate connection in Ireland from which he knew that it would be base to fly, and which, as it seemed to him, made any attempt at respectability impossible to him. Early on the following morning, as he was preparing to start, his aunt again sent for him. She came out to him in the sitting-room adjoining her bedroom and there embraced him. Her eyes were red with weeping, and her face wan with care. "Fred," she said; "dear Fred." "Good-bye, aunt. The last word I have to say is that I implore you not to leave Scroope as long as you are comfortable here." "You will come back?" "I cannot say anything certain about that." She still had hold of him with both hands and was looking into his face with loving, frightened, wistful eyes. "I know," she said, "that you will be thinking of what passed between us yesterday." "Certainly I shall remember it." "I have been praying for you, Fred; and now I tell you to look to your Father which is in Heaven for guidance, and not to take it from any poor frail sinful human being. Ask Him to keep your feet steady in the path, and your heart pure, and your thoughts free from wickedness. Oh, Fred, keep your mind and body clear before Him, and if you will kneel to Him for protection, He will show you a way through all difficulties." It was thus that she intended to tell him that his promise to her, made on the previous day, was to count for nought, and that he was to marry the girl if by no other way he could release himself from vice. But she could not bring herself to declare to him in plain terms that he had better marry Kate O'Hara, and bring his new Countess to Scroope in order that she might be fitly received by her predecessor. It might be that the Lord would still show him a way out of the two evils. But his brother was more clear of purpose with him, as they walked together out to the yard in which the young Earl was to get into his carriage. "Upon the whole, Fred, if I were you I should marry that girl." This he said quite abruptly. The young lord shook his head. "It may be that I do not know all the circumstances. If they be as I have heard them from you, I should marry her. Good-bye. Let me hear from you, when you have settled as to going anywhere." "I shall be sure to write," said Fred as he took the reins and seated him in the phaeton. His brother's advice he understood plainly, and that of his aunt he thought that he understood. But he shook his head again as he told himself that he could not now be guided by either of them. CHAPTER IX. AT LISCANNOR. The young lord slept one night at Ennis, and on the third morning after his departure from Scroope, started in his gig for Liscannor and the cliffs of Moher. He took a servant with him and a change of clothes. And as he went his heart was very heavy. He could not live a coward in his own esteem. Were it not so how willingly would he have saved himself from the misery of this journey, and have sent to his Kate to bid her come to him in England! He feared the priest, and he feared his Kate's mother;--not her dagger, but her eyes and scorching words. He altogether doubted his own powers to perform satisfactorily the task before him. He knew men who could do it. His brother Jack would do it, were it possible that his brother Jack should be in such a position. But for himself, he was conscious of a softness of heart, a feminine tenderness, which,--to do him justice,--he did not mistake for sincerity, that rendered him unfit for the task before him. The farther he journeyed from Scroope and the nearer that he found himself to the cliffs the stronger did the feeling grow within him, till it had become almost

salves

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

women,--who in all other views of life are perhaps tender and soft-natured,--is one of the marvels of our social system. It is as though a certain line were drawn to include all women,--a line, but, alas, little more than a line,--by overstepping which, or rather by being known to have overstepped it, a woman ceases to be a woman in the estimation of her own sex. That the existence of this feeling has strong effect in saving women from passing the line, none of us can doubt. That its general tendency may be good rather than evil, is possible. But the hardness necessary to preserve the rule, a hardness which must be exclusively feminine but which is seldom wanting, is a marvellous feature in the female character. Lady Mary Quin probably thought but little on the subject. The women in the cottage on the cliff, who were befriended by Father Marty, were to her dangerous scheming Roman Catholic adventurers. The proper triumph of Protestant virtue required that they should fail in their adventures. She had always known that there would be something disreputable heard of them sooner or later. When the wretched Captain came into the neighbourhood,--and she soon heard of his coming,--she was gratified by feeling that her convictions had been correct. When the sad tidings as to poor Kate reached her ears, she had "known that it would be so." That such a girl should be made Countess of Scroope in reward for her wickedness would be to her an event horrible, almost contrary to Divine Providence,--a testimony that the Evil One was being allowed peculiar power at the moment, and would no doubt have been used in her own circles to show the ruin that had been brought upon the country by Catholic emancipation. She did not for a moment doubt that the present Earl should be encouraged to break any promises of marriage to the making of which he might have been allured. But it was not so with Lady Scroope. She, indeed, came to the same conclusion as her friend, but she did so with much difficulty and after many inward struggles. She understood and valued the customs of the magic line. In her heart of hearts she approved of a different code of morals for men and women. That which merited instant, and as regarded this world, perpetual condemnation in a woman, might in a man be very easily forgiven. A sigh, a shake of the head, and some small innocent stratagem that might lead to a happy marriage and settlement in life with increased income, would have been her treatment of such sin for the heirs of the great and wealthy. She knew that the world could not afford to ostracise the men,--though happily it might condemn the women. Nevertheless, when she came to the single separated instance, though her heart melted with no ruth for the woman,--in such cases the woman must be seen before the ruth is felt,--though pity for Kate O'Hara did not influence her, she did acknowledge the sanctity of a gentleman's word. If, as Lady Mary told her, and as she could so well believe, the present Earl of Scroope had given to this girl a promise that he would marry her, if he had bound himself by his pledged word, as a nobleman and a gentleman, how could she bid him become a perjured knave? Sans reproche! Was he thus to begin to live and to deserve the motto of his house by the conduct of his life? But then the evil that would be done was so great! She did not for a moment doubt all that Lady Mary told her about the girl. The worst of it had indeed been admitted. She was a Roman Catholic, ill-born, ill-connected, damaged utterly by a parent so low that nothing lower could possibly be raked out of the world's gutters. And now the girl herself was--a castaway. Such a marriage as that of which Lady Mary spoke would not only injure the house of Scroope for the present generation, but would tend to its final downfall. Would it not be known throughout all England that the next Earl of Scroope would be the grandson of a convict? Might there not be questions as to the legitimacy of the assumed heir? She herself knew of noble families which had been scattered, confounded, and almost ruined by such imprudence. Hitherto the family of Scroope had been continued from generation to generation without stain,--almost without stain. It had felt it to be a fortunate thing that the late heir had died because of the pollution of his wretched marriage. And now must evil as bad befall it, worse evil perhaps, through the folly of this young man? Must that proud motto be taken down from its place in the hall from very shame? But the evil had not been done yet, and it might be that her words could save the house from ruin and disgrace. She was a woman of whom it may be said that whatever difficulty she might have in deciding a question she could recognise the necessity of a decision and could abide by it when she had made it. It was with great difficulty that she could bring herself to think that an Earl of Scroope should be false to a promise by which he had seduced a woman, but she did succeed in bringing herself to such thought. Her very heart bled within her as she acknowledged the necessity. A lie to her was abominable. A lie, to be told by herself, would have been hideous to her. A lie to be told by him, was worse. As virtue, what she called virtue, was the one thing indispensable to women, so was truth the one thing indispensable to men. And yet she must tell him to lie, and having resolved so to tell him, must use all her intellect to defend the lie,--and to insist upon it. He was determined to return to Ireland, and there was nothing that she could do to prevent his return. She could not bid him shun a danger simply because it was a danger. He was his own master, and were she to do so he would only laugh at her. Of authority with him she had none. If she spoke, he must listen. Her position would secure so much to her from courtesy,--and were she to speak of the duty which he owed to his name and to the family he could hardly laugh. She therefore sent to him a message. Would he kindly go to her in her own room? Of course he attended to her wishes and went. "You mean to leave us to-morrow, Fred," she said. We all know the peculiar solemnity of a widow's dress,--the look of self-sacrifice on the part of the woman which the dress creates; and have perhaps recognised the fact that if the woman be deterred by no necessities of oeconomy in her toilet,--as in such material circumstances the splendour is more perfect if splendour be the object,--so also is the self-sacrifice more abject. And with this widow an appearance of melancholy solemnity, almost of woe, was natural to her. She was one whose life had ever been serious, solemn, and sad. Wealth and the outward pomp of circumstances had conferred upon her a certain dignity; and with that doubtless there had reached her some feeling of satisfaction. Religion too had given her comfort, and a routine of small duties had saved her from the wretchedness of ennui. But life with her had had no laughter, and had seldom smiled. Now in the first days of her widowhood she regarded her course as run, and looked upon herself as one who, in speaking, almost spoke from the tomb. All this had its effect upon the young lord. She did inspire him with a certain awe; and though her weeds gave her no authority, they did give her weight. "Yes; I shall start to-morrow," he replied. "And you still mean to go to Ireland?" "Yes;--I must go to Ireland. I shan't stay there, you know." Then she paused a moment before she proceeded. "Shall you see--that young woman when you are there?" "I suppose I shall see her." "Pray do not think that I desire to interfere with your private affairs. I know well that I have no right to assume over you any of that affectionate authority which a mother might have,--though in truth I love you as a son." "I would treat you just as I would my own mother." "No, Fred; that cannot be so. A mother would throw her arms round you and cling to you if she saw you going into danger. A mother would follow you, hoping that she might save you." "But there is no danger." "Ah, Fred, I fear there is." "What danger?" "You are now the head of one of the oldest and the noblest families in this which in my heart I believe to be the least sinful among the sinful nations of the wicked world." "I don't quite know how that may be;--I mean about the world. Of course I understand about the family." "But you love your country?" "Oh yes. I don't think there's any place like England,--to live in." "And England is what it is because there are still some left among us who are born to high rank and who know how to live up to the standard that is required of them. If ever there was such a man, your uncle was such a one." "I'm sure he was;--just what he ought to have been." "Honourable, true, affectionate, self-denying, affable to all men, but ever conscious of his rank, giving much because much had been given to him, asserting his nobility for the benefit of those around him, proud of his order for the sake of his country, bearing his sorrows with the dignity of silence, a nobleman all over, living on to the end sans reproche! He was a man whom you may dare to imitate, though to follow him may be difficult." She spoke not loudly, but clearly, looking him full in the face as she stood motionless before him. "He was all that," said Fred, almost overpowered by the sincere solemnity of his aunt's manner. "Will you try to walk in his footsteps?" "Two men can never be like one another in that way. I shall never be what he was. But I'll endeavour to get along as well as I can." "You will remember your order?" "Yes, I will. I do remember it. Mind you, aunt, I am not glad that I belong to it. I think I do understand about it all, and will do my best. But Jack would have made a better Earl than I shall do. That's the truth." "The Lord God has placed you,--and you must pray to Him that He will enable you to do your duty in that state of life to which it has pleased Him to call you. You are here and must bear his decree; and whether it be a privilege to enjoy, you must enjoy it, or a burden to bear, you must endure it." "It is so of course." "Knowing that, you must know also how incumbent it is upon you not to defile the stock from which you are sprung." "I suppose it has been defiled," said Fred, who had been looking into the history of the family. "The ninth Earl seems to have married nobody knows whom. And his son was my uncle's grandfather." This was a blow to Lady Scroope, but she bore it with dignity and courage. "You would hardly wish it to be said that you had copied the only one of your ancestors who did amiss. The world was rougher then than it is now, and he of whom you speak was a soldier." "I'm a soldier too," said the Earl. "Oh, Fred, is it thus you answer me! He was a soldier in rough times, when there were wars. I think he married when he was with the army under Marlborough." "I have not seen anything of that kind, certainly." "Your country is at peace, and your place is here, among your tenantry, at Scroope. You will promise me, Fred, that you will not marry this girl in Ireland?" "If I do, the fault will be all with that old maid at Castle Quin." "Do not say that, Fred. It is impossible. Let her conduct have been what it may, it cannot make that right in you which would have been wrong, or that wrong which would have been right." "She's a nasty meddlesome cat." "I will not talk about her. What good would it do? You cannot at any rate be surprised at my extreme anxiety. You did promise your uncle most solemnly that you would never marry this young lady." "If I did, that ought to be enough." He was now waxing angry and his face was becoming red. He would bear a good deal from his uncle's widow, but he felt his own power and was not prepared to bear much more. "Of course I cannot bind you. I know well how impotent I am,--how powerless to exercise control. But I think, Fred, that for your uncle's sake you will not refuse to repeat your promise to me, if you intend to keep it. Why is it that I am so anxious? It is for your sake, and for the sake of a name which should be dearer to you than it is even to me." "I have no intention of marrying at all." "Do not say that." "I do say it. I do not want to keep either you or Jack in the dark as to my future life. This young lady,--of whom, by the by, neither you nor Lady Mary Quin know anything, shall not become Countess of Scroope. To that I have made up my mind." "Thank God." "But as long as she lives I will make no woman Countess of Scroope. Let Jack marry this girl that he is in love with. They shall live here and have the house to themselves if they like it. He will look after the property and shall have whatever income old Mellerby thinks proper. I will keep the promise I made to my uncle,--but the keeping of it will make it impossible for me to live here. I would prefer now that you should say no more on the subject." Then he left her, quitting the room with some stateliness in his step, as though conscious that at such a moment as this it behoved him to assume his rank. The dowager sat alone all that morning thinking of the thing she had done. She did now believe that he was positively resolved not to marry Kate O'Hara, and she believed also that she herself had fixed him in that resolution. In doing so had she or had she not committed a deadly sin? She knew almost with accuracy what had occurred on the coast of Clare. A young girl, innocent herself up to that moment, had been enticed to her ruin by words of love which had been hallowed in her ears by vows of marriage. Those vows which had possessed so deadly an efficacy, were now to be simply broken! The cruelty to her would be damnable, devilish,--surely worthy of hell if any sin of man can be so called! And she, who could not divest herself of a certain pride taken in the austere morality of her own life, she who was now a widow anxious to devote her life solely to God, had persuaded the man to this sin, in order that her successor as Countess of Scroope might not be, in her opinion, unfitting for nobility! The young lord had promised her that he would be guilty of this sin, so damnable, so devilish, telling her as he did so, that as a consequence of his promise he must continue to live a life of wickedness! In the agony of her spirit she threw herself upon her knees and implored the Lord to pardon her and to guide her. But even while kneeling before the throne of heaven she could not drive the pride of birth out of her heart. That the young Earl might be saved from the damning sin and also from the polluting marriage;--that was the prayer she prayed. CHAPTER VIII. LOOSE ABOUT THE WORLD. The Countess was seen no more on that day,--was no more seen at least by either of the two brothers. Miss Mellerby was with her now and again, but on each occasion only for a few minutes, and reported that Lady Scroope was ill and could not appear at dinner. She would, however, see her nephew before he started on the following morning. Fred himself was much affected by the interview with his aunt. No doubt he had made a former promise to his uncle, similar to that which had now been exacted from him. No doubt he had himself resolved, after what he had thought to be mature consideration that he would not marry the girl, justifying to himself this decision by the deceit which he thought had been practised upon him in regard to Captain O'Hara. Nevertheless, he felt that by what had now occurred he was bound more strongly against the marriage than he had ever been bound before. His promise to his uncle might have been regarded as being obligatory only as long as his uncle lived. His own decision he would have been at liberty to change when he pleased to do so. But, though his aunt was almost nothing to him,--was not in very truth his aunt, but only the widow of his uncle, there had been a solemnity about the engagement as he had now made it with her, which he felt to be definitely binding. He must go to Ardkill prepared to tell them absolutely the truth. He would make any arrangement they pleased as to their future joint lives, so long as it was an arrangement by which Kate should not become Countess of Scroope. He did not attempt to conceal from himself the dreadful nature of the task before him. He knew what would be the indignation of the priest. He could picture to himself the ferocity of the mother, defending her young as a lioness would her whelp. He could imagine that that dagger might again be brought from its hiding place. And, worse than all, he would see the girl prostrate in her woe, and appealing to his love and to his oaths, when the truth as to her future life should be revealed to her. But yet he did not think of shunning the task before him. He could not endure to live a coward in his own esteem. He was unlike himself and very melancholy. "It has been so good of you to remain here," he said to Sophie Mellerby. They had now become intimate and almost attached to each other as friends. If she had allowed a spark of hope to become bright within her heart in regard to the young Earl that had long since been quenched. She had acknowledged to herself that had it been possible in other respects they would not have suited each other,--and now they were friends. "I love your aunt dearly and have been very glad to be with her." "I wish you would learn to love somebody else dearly." "Perhaps I shall, some day,--somebody else; though I don't at all know who it may be." "You know whom I mean." "I suppose I do." "And why not love him? Isn't he a good fellow?" "One can't love all the good fellows, Lord Scroope." "You'll never find a better one than he is." "Did he commission you to speak for him?" "You know he didn't. You know that he would be the last man in the world to do so?" "I was surprised." "But I had a reason for speaking." "No doubt." "I don't suppose it will have any effect with you;--but it is something you ought to know. If any man of my age can be supposed to have made up his mind on such a matter, you may believe that I have made up my mind that I will--never marry." "What nonsense, Lord Scroope." "Well;--yes; perhaps it is. But I am so convinced of it myself that I shall ask my brother to come and live here--permanently,--as master of the place. As he would have to leave his regiment it would of course be necessary that his position here should be settled,--and it shall be settled." "I most sincerely hope that you will always live here yourself." "It won't suit me. Circumstances have made it impossible. If he will not do so, nor my aunt, the house must be shut up. I am most anxious that this should not be done. I shall implore him to remain here, and to be here exactly as I should have been,--had things with me not have been so very unfortunate. He will at any rate have a house to offer you, if--" "Lord Scroope!" "I know what you are going to say, Sophie." "I don't know that I am as yet disposed to marry for the sake of a house to shelter me." "Of course you would say that; but still I think that I have been right to tell you. I am sure you will believe my assurance that Jack knows nothing of all this." That same evening he said nearly the same thing to his brother, though in doing so he made no special allusion to Sophie Mellerby. "I know that there is a great deal that a fellow should do, living in such a house as this, but I am not the man to do it. It's a very good kind of life, if you happen to be up to it. I am not, but you are." "My dear Fred, you can't change the accidents of birth." "In a great measure I can; or at least we can do so between us. You can't be Lord Scroope, but you can be master of Scroope Manor." "No I can't;--and, which is more, I won't. Don't think I am uncivil." "You are uncivil, Jack." "At any rate I am not ungrateful. I only want you to understand thoroughly that such an arrangement is out of the question. In no condition of life would I care to be the locum tenens for another man. You are now five or six and twenty. At thirty you may be a married man with an absolute need for your own house." "I would execute any deed." "So that I might be enabled to keep the owner of the property out of the only place that is fit for him! It is a power which I should not use, and do not wish to possess. Believe me, Fred, that a man is bound to submit himself to the circumstances by which he is surrounded, when it is clear that they are beneficial to the world at large. There must be an Earl of Scroope, and you at present are the man." They were sitting together out upon the terrace after dinner, and for a time there was silence. His brother's arguments were too strong for the young lord, and it was out of his power to deal with one so dogmatic. But he did not forget the last words that had been spoken. It may be that "I shall not be the man very long," he said at last. "Any of us may die to-day or to-morrow," said Jack. "I have a kind of presentiment,--not that I shall die, but that I shall never see Scroope again. It seems as though I were certainly leaving for ever a place that has always been distasteful to me." "I never believe anything of presentiments." "No; of course not. You're not that sort of fellow at all. But I am. I can't think of myself as living here with a dozen old fogies about the place all doing nothing, touching their hats, my-lording me at every turn, looking respectable, but as idle as pickpockets." "You'll have to do it." "Perhaps I shall, but I don't think it." Then there was again silence for a time. "The less said about it the better, but I know that I've got a very difficult job before me in Ireland." "I don't envy you, Fred;--not that." "It is no use talking about it. It has got to be done, and the sooner done the better. What I shall do when it is done, I have not the most remote idea. Where I shall be living this day month I cannot guess. I can only say one thing certainly, and that is that I shall not come back here. There never was a fellow so loose about the world as I am." It was terrible that a young man who had it in his power to do so much good or so much evil should have had nothing to bind him to the better course! There was the motto of his house, and the promises which he had made to his uncle persuading him to that which was respectable and as he thought dull; and opposed to those influences there was an unconquerable feeling on his own part that he was altogether unfitted for the kind of life that was expected of him. Joined to this there was the fact of that unfortunate connection in Ireland from which he knew that it would be base to fly, and which, as it seemed to him, made any attempt at respectability impossible to him. Early on the following morning, as he was preparing to start, his aunt again sent for him. She came out to him in the sitting-room adjoining her bedroom and there embraced him. Her eyes were red with weeping, and her face wan with care. "Fred," she said; "dear Fred." "Good-bye, aunt. The last word I have to say is that I implore you not to leave Scroope as long as you are comfortable here." "You will come back?" "I cannot say anything certain about that." She still had hold of him with both hands and was looking into his face with loving, frightened, wistful eyes. "I know," she said, "that you will be thinking of what passed between us yesterday." "Certainly I shall remember it." "I have been praying for you, Fred; and now I tell you to look to your Father which is in Heaven for guidance, and not to take it from any poor frail sinful human being. Ask Him to keep your feet steady in the path, and your heart pure, and your thoughts free from wickedness. Oh, Fred, keep your mind and body clear before Him, and if you will kneel to Him for protection, He will show you a way through all difficulties." It was thus that she intended to tell him that his promise to her, made on the previous day, was to count for nought, and that he was to marry the girl if by no other way he could release himself from vice. But she could not bring herself to declare to him in plain terms that he had better marry Kate O'Hara, and bring his new Countess to Scroope in order that she might be fitly received by her predecessor. It might be that the Lord would still show him a way out of the two evils. But his brother was more clear of purpose with him, as they walked together out to the yard in which the young Earl was to get into his carriage. "Upon the whole, Fred, if I were you I should marry that girl." This he said quite abruptly. The young lord shook his head. "It may be that I do not know all the circumstances. If they be as I have heard them from you, I should marry her. Good-bye. Let me hear from you, when you have settled as to going anywhere." "I shall be sure to write," said Fred as he took the reins and seated him in the phaeton. His brother's advice he understood plainly, and that of his aunt he thought that he understood. But he shook his head again as he told himself that he could not now be guided by either of them. CHAPTER IX. AT LISCANNOR. The young lord slept one night at Ennis, and on the third morning after his departure from Scroope, started in his gig for Liscannor and the cliffs of Moher. He took a servant with him and a change of clothes. And as he went his heart was very heavy. He could not live a coward in his own esteem. Were it not so how willingly would he have saved himself from the misery of this journey, and have sent to his Kate to bid her come to him in England! He feared the priest, and he feared his Kate's mother;--not her dagger, but her eyes and scorching words. He altogether doubted his own powers to perform satisfactorily the task before him. He knew men who could do it. His brother Jack would do it, were it possible that his brother Jack should be in such a position. But for himself, he was conscious of a softness of heart, a feminine tenderness, which,--to do him justice,--he did not mistake for sincerity, that rendered him unfit for the task before him. The farther he journeyed from Scroope and the nearer that he found himself to the cliffs the stronger did the feeling grow within him, till it had become almost

listen

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

women,--who in all other views of life are perhaps tender and soft-natured,--is one of the marvels of our social system. It is as though a certain line were drawn to include all women,--a line, but, alas, little more than a line,--by overstepping which, or rather by being known to have overstepped it, a woman ceases to be a woman in the estimation of her own sex. That the existence of this feeling has strong effect in saving women from passing the line, none of us can doubt. That its general tendency may be good rather than evil, is possible. But the hardness necessary to preserve the rule, a hardness which must be exclusively feminine but which is seldom wanting, is a marvellous feature in the female character. Lady Mary Quin probably thought but little on the subject. The women in the cottage on the cliff, who were befriended by Father Marty, were to her dangerous scheming Roman Catholic adventurers. The proper triumph of Protestant virtue required that they should fail in their adventures. She had always known that there would be something disreputable heard of them sooner or later. When the wretched Captain came into the neighbourhood,--and she soon heard of his coming,--she was gratified by feeling that her convictions had been correct. When the sad tidings as to poor Kate reached her ears, she had "known that it would be so." That such a girl should be made Countess of Scroope in reward for her wickedness would be to her an event horrible, almost contrary to Divine Providence,--a testimony that the Evil One was being allowed peculiar power at the moment, and would no doubt have been used in her own circles to show the ruin that had been brought upon the country by Catholic emancipation. She did not for a moment doubt that the present Earl should be encouraged to break any promises of marriage to the making of which he might have been allured. But it was not so with Lady Scroope. She, indeed, came to the same conclusion as her friend, but she did so with much difficulty and after many inward struggles. She understood and valued the customs of the magic line. In her heart of hearts she approved of a different code of morals for men and women. That which merited instant, and as regarded this world, perpetual condemnation in a woman, might in a man be very easily forgiven. A sigh, a shake of the head, and some small innocent stratagem that might lead to a happy marriage and settlement in life with increased income, would have been her treatment of such sin for the heirs of the great and wealthy. She knew that the world could not afford to ostracise the men,--though happily it might condemn the women. Nevertheless, when she came to the single separated instance, though her heart melted with no ruth for the woman,--in such cases the woman must be seen before the ruth is felt,--though pity for Kate O'Hara did not influence her, she did acknowledge the sanctity of a gentleman's word. If, as Lady Mary told her, and as she could so well believe, the present Earl of Scroope had given to this girl a promise that he would marry her, if he had bound himself by his pledged word, as a nobleman and a gentleman, how could she bid him become a perjured knave? Sans reproche! Was he thus to begin to live and to deserve the motto of his house by the conduct of his life? But then the evil that would be done was so great! She did not for a moment doubt all that Lady Mary told her about the girl. The worst of it had indeed been admitted. She was a Roman Catholic, ill-born, ill-connected, damaged utterly by a parent so low that nothing lower could possibly be raked out of the world's gutters. And now the girl herself was--a castaway. Such a marriage as that of which Lady Mary spoke would not only injure the house of Scroope for the present generation, but would tend to its final downfall. Would it not be known throughout all England that the next Earl of Scroope would be the grandson of a convict? Might there not be questions as to the legitimacy of the assumed heir? She herself knew of noble families which had been scattered, confounded, and almost ruined by such imprudence. Hitherto the family of Scroope had been continued from generation to generation without stain,--almost without stain. It had felt it to be a fortunate thing that the late heir had died because of the pollution of his wretched marriage. And now must evil as bad befall it, worse evil perhaps, through the folly of this young man? Must that proud motto be taken down from its place in the hall from very shame? But the evil had not been done yet, and it might be that her words could save the house from ruin and disgrace. She was a woman of whom it may be said that whatever difficulty she might have in deciding a question she could recognise the necessity of a decision and could abide by it when she had made it. It was with great difficulty that she could bring herself to think that an Earl of Scroope should be false to a promise by which he had seduced a woman, but she did succeed in bringing herself to such thought. Her very heart bled within her as she acknowledged the necessity. A lie to her was abominable. A lie, to be told by herself, would have been hideous to her. A lie to be told by him, was worse. As virtue, what she called virtue, was the one thing indispensable to women, so was truth the one thing indispensable to men. And yet she must tell him to lie, and having resolved so to tell him, must use all her intellect to defend the lie,--and to insist upon it. He was determined to return to Ireland, and there was nothing that she could do to prevent his return. She could not bid him shun a danger simply because it was a danger. He was his own master, and were she to do so he would only laugh at her. Of authority with him she had none. If she spoke, he must listen. Her position would secure so much to her from courtesy,--and were she to speak of the duty which he owed to his name and to the family he could hardly laugh. She therefore sent to him a message. Would he kindly go to her in her own room? Of course he attended to her wishes and went. "You mean to leave us to-morrow, Fred," she said. We all know the peculiar solemnity of a widow's dress,--the look of self-sacrifice on the part of the woman which the dress creates; and have perhaps recognised the fact that if the woman be deterred by no necessities of oeconomy in her toilet,--as in such material circumstances the splendour is more perfect if splendour be the object,--so also is the self-sacrifice more abject. And with this widow an appearance of melancholy solemnity, almost of woe, was natural to her. She was one whose life had ever been serious, solemn, and sad. Wealth and the outward pomp of circumstances had conferred upon her a certain dignity; and with that doubtless there had reached her some feeling of satisfaction. Religion too had given her comfort, and a routine of small duties had saved her from the wretchedness of ennui. But life with her had had no laughter, and had seldom smiled. Now in the first days of her widowhood she regarded her course as run, and looked upon herself as one who, in speaking, almost spoke from the tomb. All this had its effect upon the young lord. She did inspire him with a certain awe; and though her weeds gave her no authority, they did give her weight. "Yes; I shall start to-morrow," he replied. "And you still mean to go to Ireland?" "Yes;--I must go to Ireland. I shan't stay there, you know." Then she paused a moment before she proceeded. "Shall you see--that young woman when you are there?" "I suppose I shall see her." "Pray do not think that I desire to interfere with your private affairs. I know well that I have no right to assume over you any of that affectionate authority which a mother might have,--though in truth I love you as a son." "I would treat you just as I would my own mother." "No, Fred; that cannot be so. A mother would throw her arms round you and cling to you if she saw you going into danger. A mother would follow you, hoping that she might save you." "But there is no danger." "Ah, Fred, I fear there is." "What danger?" "You are now the head of one of the oldest and the noblest families in this which in my heart I believe to be the least sinful among the sinful nations of the wicked world." "I don't quite know how that may be;--I mean about the world. Of course I understand about the family." "But you love your country?" "Oh yes. I don't think there's any place like England,--to live in." "And England is what it is because there are still some left among us who are born to high rank and who know how to live up to the standard that is required of them. If ever there was such a man, your uncle was such a one." "I'm sure he was;--just what he ought to have been." "Honourable, true, affectionate, self-denying, affable to all men, but ever conscious of his rank, giving much because much had been given to him, asserting his nobility for the benefit of those around him, proud of his order for the sake of his country, bearing his sorrows with the dignity of silence, a nobleman all over, living on to the end sans reproche! He was a man whom you may dare to imitate, though to follow him may be difficult." She spoke not loudly, but clearly, looking him full in the face as she stood motionless before him. "He was all that," said Fred, almost overpowered by the sincere solemnity of his aunt's manner. "Will you try to walk in his footsteps?" "Two men can never be like one another in that way. I shall never be what he was. But I'll endeavour to get along as well as I can." "You will remember your order?" "Yes, I will. I do remember it. Mind you, aunt, I am not glad that I belong to it. I think I do understand about it all, and will do my best. But Jack would have made a better Earl than I shall do. That's the truth." "The Lord God has placed you,--and you must pray to Him that He will enable you to do your duty in that state of life to which it has pleased Him to call you. You are here and must bear his decree; and whether it be a privilege to enjoy, you must enjoy it, or a burden to bear, you must endure it." "It is so of course." "Knowing that, you must know also how incumbent it is upon you not to defile the stock from which you are sprung." "I suppose it has been defiled," said Fred, who had been looking into the history of the family. "The ninth Earl seems to have married nobody knows whom. And his son was my uncle's grandfather." This was a blow to Lady Scroope, but she bore it with dignity and courage. "You would hardly wish it to be said that you had copied the only one of your ancestors who did amiss. The world was rougher then than it is now, and he of whom you speak was a soldier." "I'm a soldier too," said the Earl. "Oh, Fred, is it thus you answer me! He was a soldier in rough times, when there were wars. I think he married when he was with the army under Marlborough." "I have not seen anything of that kind, certainly." "Your country is at peace, and your place is here, among your tenantry, at Scroope. You will promise me, Fred, that you will not marry this girl in Ireland?" "If I do, the fault will be all with that old maid at Castle Quin." "Do not say that, Fred. It is impossible. Let her conduct have been what it may, it cannot make that right in you which would have been wrong, or that wrong which would have been right." "She's a nasty meddlesome cat." "I will not talk about her. What good would it do? You cannot at any rate be surprised at my extreme anxiety. You did promise your uncle most solemnly that you would never marry this young lady." "If I did, that ought to be enough." He was now waxing angry and his face was becoming red. He would bear a good deal from his uncle's widow, but he felt his own power and was not prepared to bear much more. "Of course I cannot bind you. I know well how impotent I am,--how powerless to exercise control. But I think, Fred, that for your uncle's sake you will not refuse to repeat your promise to me, if you intend to keep it. Why is it that I am so anxious? It is for your sake, and for the sake of a name which should be dearer to you than it is even to me." "I have no intention of marrying at all." "Do not say that." "I do say it. I do not want to keep either you or Jack in the dark as to my future life. This young lady,--of whom, by the by, neither you nor Lady Mary Quin know anything, shall not become Countess of Scroope. To that I have made up my mind." "Thank God." "But as long as she lives I will make no woman Countess of Scroope. Let Jack marry this girl that he is in love with. They shall live here and have the house to themselves if they like it. He will look after the property and shall have whatever income old Mellerby thinks proper. I will keep the promise I made to my uncle,--but the keeping of it will make it impossible for me to live here. I would prefer now that you should say no more on the subject." Then he left her, quitting the room with some stateliness in his step, as though conscious that at such a moment as this it behoved him to assume his rank. The dowager sat alone all that morning thinking of the thing she had done. She did now believe that he was positively resolved not to marry Kate O'Hara, and she believed also that she herself had fixed him in that resolution. In doing so had she or had she not committed a deadly sin? She knew almost with accuracy what had occurred on the coast of Clare. A young girl, innocent herself up to that moment, had been enticed to her ruin by words of love which had been hallowed in her ears by vows of marriage. Those vows which had possessed so deadly an efficacy, were now to be simply broken! The cruelty to her would be damnable, devilish,--surely worthy of hell if any sin of man can be so called! And she, who could not divest herself of a certain pride taken in the austere morality of her own life, she who was now a widow anxious to devote her life solely to God, had persuaded the man to this sin, in order that her successor as Countess of Scroope might not be, in her opinion, unfitting for nobility! The young lord had promised her that he would be guilty of this sin, so damnable, so devilish, telling her as he did so, that as a consequence of his promise he must continue to live a life of wickedness! In the agony of her spirit she threw herself upon her knees and implored the Lord to pardon her and to guide her. But even while kneeling before the throne of heaven she could not drive the pride of birth out of her heart. That the young Earl might be saved from the damning sin and also from the polluting marriage;--that was the prayer she prayed. CHAPTER VIII. LOOSE ABOUT THE WORLD. The Countess was seen no more on that day,--was no more seen at least by either of the two brothers. Miss Mellerby was with her now and again, but on each occasion only for a few minutes, and reported that Lady Scroope was ill and could not appear at dinner. She would, however, see her nephew before he started on the following morning. Fred himself was much affected by the interview with his aunt. No doubt he had made a former promise to his uncle, similar to that which had now been exacted from him. No doubt he had himself resolved, after what he had thought to be mature consideration that he would not marry the girl, justifying to himself this decision by the deceit which he thought had been practised upon him in regard to Captain O'Hara. Nevertheless, he felt that by what had now occurred he was bound more strongly against the marriage than he had ever been bound before. His promise to his uncle might have been regarded as being obligatory only as long as his uncle lived. His own decision he would have been at liberty to change when he pleased to do so. But, though his aunt was almost nothing to him,--was not in very truth his aunt, but only the widow of his uncle, there had been a solemnity about the engagement as he had now made it with her, which he felt to be definitely binding. He must go to Ardkill prepared to tell them absolutely the truth. He would make any arrangement they pleased as to their future joint lives, so long as it was an arrangement by which Kate should not become Countess of Scroope. He did not attempt to conceal from himself the dreadful nature of the task before him. He knew what would be the indignation of the priest. He could picture to himself the ferocity of the mother, defending her young as a lioness would her whelp. He could imagine that that dagger might again be brought from its hiding place. And, worse than all, he would see the girl prostrate in her woe, and appealing to his love and to his oaths, when the truth as to her future life should be revealed to her. But yet he did not think of shunning the task before him. He could not endure to live a coward in his own esteem. He was unlike himself and very melancholy. "It has been so good of you to remain here," he said to Sophie Mellerby. They had now become intimate and almost attached to each other as friends. If she had allowed a spark of hope to become bright within her heart in regard to the young Earl that had long since been quenched. She had acknowledged to herself that had it been possible in other respects they would not have suited each other,--and now they were friends. "I love your aunt dearly and have been very glad to be with her." "I wish you would learn to love somebody else dearly." "Perhaps I shall, some day,--somebody else; though I don't at all know who it may be." "You know whom I mean." "I suppose I do." "And why not love him? Isn't he a good fellow?" "One can't love all the good fellows, Lord Scroope." "You'll never find a better one than he is." "Did he commission you to speak for him?" "You know he didn't. You know that he would be the last man in the world to do so?" "I was surprised." "But I had a reason for speaking." "No doubt." "I don't suppose it will have any effect with you;--but it is something you ought to know. If any man of my age can be supposed to have made up his mind on such a matter, you may believe that I have made up my mind that I will--never marry." "What nonsense, Lord Scroope." "Well;--yes; perhaps it is. But I am so convinced of it myself that I shall ask my brother to come and live here--permanently,--as master of the place. As he would have to leave his regiment it would of course be necessary that his position here should be settled,--and it shall be settled." "I most sincerely hope that you will always live here yourself." "It won't suit me. Circumstances have made it impossible. If he will not do so, nor my aunt, the house must be shut up. I am most anxious that this should not be done. I shall implore him to remain here, and to be here exactly as I should have been,--had things with me not have been so very unfortunate. He will at any rate have a house to offer you, if--" "Lord Scroope!" "I know what you are going to say, Sophie." "I don't know that I am as yet disposed to marry for the sake of a house to shelter me." "Of course you would say that; but still I think that I have been right to tell you. I am sure you will believe my assurance that Jack knows nothing of all this." That same evening he said nearly the same thing to his brother, though in doing so he made no special allusion to Sophie Mellerby. "I know that there is a great deal that a fellow should do, living in such a house as this, but I am not the man to do it. It's a very good kind of life, if you happen to be up to it. I am not, but you are." "My dear Fred, you can't change the accidents of birth." "In a great measure I can; or at least we can do so between us. You can't be Lord Scroope, but you can be master of Scroope Manor." "No I can't;--and, which is more, I won't. Don't think I am uncivil." "You are uncivil, Jack." "At any rate I am not ungrateful. I only want you to understand thoroughly that such an arrangement is out of the question. In no condition of life would I care to be the locum tenens for another man. You are now five or six and twenty. At thirty you may be a married man with an absolute need for your own house." "I would execute any deed." "So that I might be enabled to keep the owner of the property out of the only place that is fit for him! It is a power which I should not use, and do not wish to possess. Believe me, Fred, that a man is bound to submit himself to the circumstances by which he is surrounded, when it is clear that they are beneficial to the world at large. There must be an Earl of Scroope, and you at present are the man." They were sitting together out upon the terrace after dinner, and for a time there was silence. His brother's arguments were too strong for the young lord, and it was out of his power to deal with one so dogmatic. But he did not forget the last words that had been spoken. It may be that "I shall not be the man very long," he said at last. "Any of us may die to-day or to-morrow," said Jack. "I have a kind of presentiment,--not that I shall die, but that I shall never see Scroope again. It seems as though I were certainly leaving for ever a place that has always been distasteful to me." "I never believe anything of presentiments." "No; of course not. You're not that sort of fellow at all. But I am. I can't think of myself as living here with a dozen old fogies about the place all doing nothing, touching their hats, my-lording me at every turn, looking respectable, but as idle as pickpockets." "You'll have to do it." "Perhaps I shall, but I don't think it." Then there was again silence for a time. "The less said about it the better, but I know that I've got a very difficult job before me in Ireland." "I don't envy you, Fred;--not that." "It is no use talking about it. It has got to be done, and the sooner done the better. What I shall do when it is done, I have not the most remote idea. Where I shall be living this day month I cannot guess. I can only say one thing certainly, and that is that I shall not come back here. There never was a fellow so loose about the world as I am." It was terrible that a young man who had it in his power to do so much good or so much evil should have had nothing to bind him to the better course! There was the motto of his house, and the promises which he had made to his uncle persuading him to that which was respectable and as he thought dull; and opposed to those influences there was an unconquerable feeling on his own part that he was altogether unfitted for the kind of life that was expected of him. Joined to this there was the fact of that unfortunate connection in Ireland from which he knew that it would be base to fly, and which, as it seemed to him, made any attempt at respectability impossible to him. Early on the following morning, as he was preparing to start, his aunt again sent for him. She came out to him in the sitting-room adjoining her bedroom and there embraced him. Her eyes were red with weeping, and her face wan with care. "Fred," she said; "dear Fred." "Good-bye, aunt. The last word I have to say is that I implore you not to leave Scroope as long as you are comfortable here." "You will come back?" "I cannot say anything certain about that." She still had hold of him with both hands and was looking into his face with loving, frightened, wistful eyes. "I know," she said, "that you will be thinking of what passed between us yesterday." "Certainly I shall remember it." "I have been praying for you, Fred; and now I tell you to look to your Father which is in Heaven for guidance, and not to take it from any poor frail sinful human being. Ask Him to keep your feet steady in the path, and your heart pure, and your thoughts free from wickedness. Oh, Fred, keep your mind and body clear before Him, and if you will kneel to Him for protection, He will show you a way through all difficulties." It was thus that she intended to tell him that his promise to her, made on the previous day, was to count for nought, and that he was to marry the girl if by no other way he could release himself from vice. But she could not bring herself to declare to him in plain terms that he had better marry Kate O'Hara, and bring his new Countess to Scroope in order that she might be fitly received by her predecessor. It might be that the Lord would still show him a way out of the two evils. But his brother was more clear of purpose with him, as they walked together out to the yard in which the young Earl was to get into his carriage. "Upon the whole, Fred, if I were you I should marry that girl." This he said quite abruptly. The young lord shook his head. "It may be that I do not know all the circumstances. If they be as I have heard them from you, I should marry her. Good-bye. Let me hear from you, when you have settled as to going anywhere." "I shall be sure to write," said Fred as he took the reins and seated him in the phaeton. His brother's advice he understood plainly, and that of his aunt he thought that he understood. But he shook his head again as he told himself that he could not now be guided by either of them. CHAPTER IX. AT LISCANNOR. The young lord slept one night at Ennis, and on the third morning after his departure from Scroope, started in his gig for Liscannor and the cliffs of Moher. He took a servant with him and a change of clothes. And as he went his heart was very heavy. He could not live a coward in his own esteem. Were it not so how willingly would he have saved himself from the misery of this journey, and have sent to his Kate to bid her come to him in England! He feared the priest, and he feared his Kate's mother;--not her dagger, but her eyes and scorching words. He altogether doubted his own powers to perform satisfactorily the task before him. He knew men who could do it. His brother Jack would do it, were it possible that his brother Jack should be in such a position. But for himself, he was conscious of a softness of heart, a feminine tenderness, which,--to do him justice,--he did not mistake for sincerity, that rendered him unfit for the task before him. The farther he journeyed from Scroope and the nearer that he found himself to the cliffs the stronger did the feeling grow within him, till it had become almost

fulfils

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

women,--who in all other views of life are perhaps tender and soft-natured,--is one of the marvels of our social system. It is as though a certain line were drawn to include all women,--a line, but, alas, little more than a line,--by overstepping which, or rather by being known to have overstepped it, a woman ceases to be a woman in the estimation of her own sex. That the existence of this feeling has strong effect in saving women from passing the line, none of us can doubt. That its general tendency may be good rather than evil, is possible. But the hardness necessary to preserve the rule, a hardness which must be exclusively feminine but which is seldom wanting, is a marvellous feature in the female character. Lady Mary Quin probably thought but little on the subject. The women in the cottage on the cliff, who were befriended by Father Marty, were to her dangerous scheming Roman Catholic adventurers. The proper triumph of Protestant virtue required that they should fail in their adventures. She had always known that there would be something disreputable heard of them sooner or later. When the wretched Captain came into the neighbourhood,--and she soon heard of his coming,--she was gratified by feeling that her convictions had been correct. When the sad tidings as to poor Kate reached her ears, she had "known that it would be so." That such a girl should be made Countess of Scroope in reward for her wickedness would be to her an event horrible, almost contrary to Divine Providence,--a testimony that the Evil One was being allowed peculiar power at the moment, and would no doubt have been used in her own circles to show the ruin that had been brought upon the country by Catholic emancipation. She did not for a moment doubt that the present Earl should be encouraged to break any promises of marriage to the making of which he might have been allured. But it was not so with Lady Scroope. She, indeed, came to the same conclusion as her friend, but she did so with much difficulty and after many inward struggles. She understood and valued the customs of the magic line. In her heart of hearts she approved of a different code of morals for men and women. That which merited instant, and as regarded this world, perpetual condemnation in a woman, might in a man be very easily forgiven. A sigh, a shake of the head, and some small innocent stratagem that might lead to a happy marriage and settlement in life with increased income, would have been her treatment of such sin for the heirs of the great and wealthy. She knew that the world could not afford to ostracise the men,--though happily it might condemn the women. Nevertheless, when she came to the single separated instance, though her heart melted with no ruth for the woman,--in such cases the woman must be seen before the ruth is felt,--though pity for Kate O'Hara did not influence her, she did acknowledge the sanctity of a gentleman's word. If, as Lady Mary told her, and as she could so well believe, the present Earl of Scroope had given to this girl a promise that he would marry her, if he had bound himself by his pledged word, as a nobleman and a gentleman, how could she bid him become a perjured knave? Sans reproche! Was he thus to begin to live and to deserve the motto of his house by the conduct of his life? But then the evil that would be done was so great! She did not for a moment doubt all that Lady Mary told her about the girl. The worst of it had indeed been admitted. She was a Roman Catholic, ill-born, ill-connected, damaged utterly by a parent so low that nothing lower could possibly be raked out of the world's gutters. And now the girl herself was--a castaway. Such a marriage as that of which Lady Mary spoke would not only injure the house of Scroope for the present generation, but would tend to its final downfall. Would it not be known throughout all England that the next Earl of Scroope would be the grandson of a convict? Might there not be questions as to the legitimacy of the assumed heir? She herself knew of noble families which had been scattered, confounded, and almost ruined by such imprudence. Hitherto the family of Scroope had been continued from generation to generation without stain,--almost without stain. It had felt it to be a fortunate thing that the late heir had died because of the pollution of his wretched marriage. And now must evil as bad befall it, worse evil perhaps, through the folly of this young man? Must that proud motto be taken down from its place in the hall from very shame? But the evil had not been done yet, and it might be that her words could save the house from ruin and disgrace. She was a woman of whom it may be said that whatever difficulty she might have in deciding a question she could recognise the necessity of a decision and could abide by it when she had made it. It was with great difficulty that she could bring herself to think that an Earl of Scroope should be false to a promise by which he had seduced a woman, but she did succeed in bringing herself to such thought. Her very heart bled within her as she acknowledged the necessity. A lie to her was abominable. A lie, to be told by herself, would have been hideous to her. A lie to be told by him, was worse. As virtue, what she called virtue, was the one thing indispensable to women, so was truth the one thing indispensable to men. And yet she must tell him to lie, and having resolved so to tell him, must use all her intellect to defend the lie,--and to insist upon it. He was determined to return to Ireland, and there was nothing that she could do to prevent his return. She could not bid him shun a danger simply because it was a danger. He was his own master, and were she to do so he would only laugh at her. Of authority with him she had none. If she spoke, he must listen. Her position would secure so much to her from courtesy,--and were she to speak of the duty which he owed to his name and to the family he could hardly laugh. She therefore sent to him a message. Would he kindly go to her in her own room? Of course he attended to her wishes and went. "You mean to leave us to-morrow, Fred," she said. We all know the peculiar solemnity of a widow's dress,--the look of self-sacrifice on the part of the woman which the dress creates; and have perhaps recognised the fact that if the woman be deterred by no necessities of oeconomy in her toilet,--as in such material circumstances the splendour is more perfect if splendour be the object,--so also is the self-sacrifice more abject. And with this widow an appearance of melancholy solemnity, almost of woe, was natural to her. She was one whose life had ever been serious, solemn, and sad. Wealth and the outward pomp of circumstances had conferred upon her a certain dignity; and with that doubtless there had reached her some feeling of satisfaction. Religion too had given her comfort, and a routine of small duties had saved her from the wretchedness of ennui. But life with her had had no laughter, and had seldom smiled. Now in the first days of her widowhood she regarded her course as run, and looked upon herself as one who, in speaking, almost spoke from the tomb. All this had its effect upon the young lord. She did inspire him with a certain awe; and though her weeds gave her no authority, they did give her weight. "Yes; I shall start to-morrow," he replied. "And you still mean to go to Ireland?" "Yes;--I must go to Ireland. I shan't stay there, you know." Then she paused a moment before she proceeded. "Shall you see--that young woman when you are there?" "I suppose I shall see her." "Pray do not think that I desire to interfere with your private affairs. I know well that I have no right to assume over you any of that affectionate authority which a mother might have,--though in truth I love you as a son." "I would treat you just as I would my own mother." "No, Fred; that cannot be so. A mother would throw her arms round you and cling to you if she saw you going into danger. A mother would follow you, hoping that she might save you." "But there is no danger." "Ah, Fred, I fear there is." "What danger?" "You are now the head of one of the oldest and the noblest families in this which in my heart I believe to be the least sinful among the sinful nations of the wicked world." "I don't quite know how that may be;--I mean about the world. Of course I understand about the family." "But you love your country?" "Oh yes. I don't think there's any place like England,--to live in." "And England is what it is because there are still some left among us who are born to high rank and who know how to live up to the standard that is required of them. If ever there was such a man, your uncle was such a one." "I'm sure he was;--just what he ought to have been." "Honourable, true, affectionate, self-denying, affable to all men, but ever conscious of his rank, giving much because much had been given to him, asserting his nobility for the benefit of those around him, proud of his order for the sake of his country, bearing his sorrows with the dignity of silence, a nobleman all over, living on to the end sans reproche! He was a man whom you may dare to imitate, though to follow him may be difficult." She spoke not loudly, but clearly, looking him full in the face as she stood motionless before him. "He was all that," said Fred, almost overpowered by the sincere solemnity of his aunt's manner. "Will you try to walk in his footsteps?" "Two men can never be like one another in that way. I shall never be what he was. But I'll endeavour to get along as well as I can." "You will remember your order?" "Yes, I will. I do remember it. Mind you, aunt, I am not glad that I belong to it. I think I do understand about it all, and will do my best. But Jack would have made a better Earl than I shall do. That's the truth." "The Lord God has placed you,--and you must pray to Him that He will enable you to do your duty in that state of life to which it has pleased Him to call you. You are here and must bear his decree; and whether it be a privilege to enjoy, you must enjoy it, or a burden to bear, you must endure it." "It is so of course." "Knowing that, you must know also how incumbent it is upon you not to defile the stock from which you are sprung." "I suppose it has been defiled," said Fred, who had been looking into the history of the family. "The ninth Earl seems to have married nobody knows whom. And his son was my uncle's grandfather." This was a blow to Lady Scroope, but she bore it with dignity and courage. "You would hardly wish it to be said that you had copied the only one of your ancestors who did amiss. The world was rougher then than it is now, and he of whom you speak was a soldier." "I'm a soldier too," said the Earl. "Oh, Fred, is it thus you answer me! He was a soldier in rough times, when there were wars. I think he married when he was with the army under Marlborough." "I have not seen anything of that kind, certainly." "Your country is at peace, and your place is here, among your tenantry, at Scroope. You will promise me, Fred, that you will not marry this girl in Ireland?" "If I do, the fault will be all with that old maid at Castle Quin." "Do not say that, Fred. It is impossible. Let her conduct have been what it may, it cannot make that right in you which would have been wrong, or that wrong which would have been right." "She's a nasty meddlesome cat." "I will not talk about her. What good would it do? You cannot at any rate be surprised at my extreme anxiety. You did promise your uncle most solemnly that you would never marry this young lady." "If I did, that ought to be enough." He was now waxing angry and his face was becoming red. He would bear a good deal from his uncle's widow, but he felt his own power and was not prepared to bear much more. "Of course I cannot bind you. I know well how impotent I am,--how powerless to exercise control. But I think, Fred, that for your uncle's sake you will not refuse to repeat your promise to me, if you intend to keep it. Why is it that I am so anxious? It is for your sake, and for the sake of a name which should be dearer to you than it is even to me." "I have no intention of marrying at all." "Do not say that." "I do say it. I do not want to keep either you or Jack in the dark as to my future life. This young lady,--of whom, by the by, neither you nor Lady Mary Quin know anything, shall not become Countess of Scroope. To that I have made up my mind." "Thank God." "But as long as she lives I will make no woman Countess of Scroope. Let Jack marry this girl that he is in love with. They shall live here and have the house to themselves if they like it. He will look after the property and shall have whatever income old Mellerby thinks proper. I will keep the promise I made to my uncle,--but the keeping of it will make it impossible for me to live here. I would prefer now that you should say no more on the subject." Then he left her, quitting the room with some stateliness in his step, as though conscious that at such a moment as this it behoved him to assume his rank. The dowager sat alone all that morning thinking of the thing she had done. She did now believe that he was positively resolved not to marry Kate O'Hara, and she believed also that she herself had fixed him in that resolution. In doing so had she or had she not committed a deadly sin? She knew almost with accuracy what had occurred on the coast of Clare. A young girl, innocent herself up to that moment, had been enticed to her ruin by words of love which had been hallowed in her ears by vows of marriage. Those vows which had possessed so deadly an efficacy, were now to be simply broken! The cruelty to her would be damnable, devilish,--surely worthy of hell if any sin of man can be so called! And she, who could not divest herself of a certain pride taken in the austere morality of her own life, she who was now a widow anxious to devote her life solely to God, had persuaded the man to this sin, in order that her successor as Countess of Scroope might not be, in her opinion, unfitting for nobility! The young lord had promised her that he would be guilty of this sin, so damnable, so devilish, telling her as he did so, that as a consequence of his promise he must continue to live a life of wickedness! In the agony of her spirit she threw herself upon her knees and implored the Lord to pardon her and to guide her. But even while kneeling before the throne of heaven she could not drive the pride of birth out of her heart. That the young Earl might be saved from the damning sin and also from the polluting marriage;--that was the prayer she prayed. CHAPTER VIII. LOOSE ABOUT THE WORLD. The Countess was seen no more on that day,--was no more seen at least by either of the two brothers. Miss Mellerby was with her now and again, but on each occasion only for a few minutes, and reported that Lady Scroope was ill and could not appear at dinner. She would, however, see her nephew before he started on the following morning. Fred himself was much affected by the interview with his aunt. No doubt he had made a former promise to his uncle, similar to that which had now been exacted from him. No doubt he had himself resolved, after what he had thought to be mature consideration that he would not marry the girl, justifying to himself this decision by the deceit which he thought had been practised upon him in regard to Captain O'Hara. Nevertheless, he felt that by what had now occurred he was bound more strongly against the marriage than he had ever been bound before. His promise to his uncle might have been regarded as being obligatory only as long as his uncle lived. His own decision he would have been at liberty to change when he pleased to do so. But, though his aunt was almost nothing to him,--was not in very truth his aunt, but only the widow of his uncle, there had been a solemnity about the engagement as he had now made it with her, which he felt to be definitely binding. He must go to Ardkill prepared to tell them absolutely the truth. He would make any arrangement they pleased as to their future joint lives, so long as it was an arrangement by which Kate should not become Countess of Scroope. He did not attempt to conceal from himself the dreadful nature of the task before him. He knew what would be the indignation of the priest. He could picture to himself the ferocity of the mother, defending her young as a lioness would her whelp. He could imagine that that dagger might again be brought from its hiding place. And, worse than all, he would see the girl prostrate in her woe, and appealing to his love and to his oaths, when the truth as to her future life should be revealed to her. But yet he did not think of shunning the task before him. He could not endure to live a coward in his own esteem. He was unlike himself and very melancholy. "It has been so good of you to remain here," he said to Sophie Mellerby. They had now become intimate and almost attached to each other as friends. If she had allowed a spark of hope to become bright within her heart in regard to the young Earl that had long since been quenched. She had acknowledged to herself that had it been possible in other respects they would not have suited each other,--and now they were friends. "I love your aunt dearly and have been very glad to be with her." "I wish you would learn to love somebody else dearly." "Perhaps I shall, some day,--somebody else; though I don't at all know who it may be." "You know whom I mean." "I suppose I do." "And why not love him? Isn't he a good fellow?" "One can't love all the good fellows, Lord Scroope." "You'll never find a better one than he is." "Did he commission you to speak for him?" "You know he didn't. You know that he would be the last man in the world to do so?" "I was surprised." "But I had a reason for speaking." "No doubt." "I don't suppose it will have any effect with you;--but it is something you ought to know. If any man of my age can be supposed to have made up his mind on such a matter, you may believe that I have made up my mind that I will--never marry." "What nonsense, Lord Scroope." "Well;--yes; perhaps it is. But I am so convinced of it myself that I shall ask my brother to come and live here--permanently,--as master of the place. As he would have to leave his regiment it would of course be necessary that his position here should be settled,--and it shall be settled." "I most sincerely hope that you will always live here yourself." "It won't suit me. Circumstances have made it impossible. If he will not do so, nor my aunt, the house must be shut up. I am most anxious that this should not be done. I shall implore him to remain here, and to be here exactly as I should have been,--had things with me not have been so very unfortunate. He will at any rate have a house to offer you, if--" "Lord Scroope!" "I know what you are going to say, Sophie." "I don't know that I am as yet disposed to marry for the sake of a house to shelter me." "Of course you would say that; but still I think that I have been right to tell you. I am sure you will believe my assurance that Jack knows nothing of all this." That same evening he said nearly the same thing to his brother, though in doing so he made no special allusion to Sophie Mellerby. "I know that there is a great deal that a fellow should do, living in such a house as this, but I am not the man to do it. It's a very good kind of life, if you happen to be up to it. I am not, but you are." "My dear Fred, you can't change the accidents of birth." "In a great measure I can; or at least we can do so between us. You can't be Lord Scroope, but you can be master of Scroope Manor." "No I can't;--and, which is more, I won't. Don't think I am uncivil." "You are uncivil, Jack." "At any rate I am not ungrateful. I only want you to understand thoroughly that such an arrangement is out of the question. In no condition of life would I care to be the locum tenens for another man. You are now five or six and twenty. At thirty you may be a married man with an absolute need for your own house." "I would execute any deed." "So that I might be enabled to keep the owner of the property out of the only place that is fit for him! It is a power which I should not use, and do not wish to possess. Believe me, Fred, that a man is bound to submit himself to the circumstances by which he is surrounded, when it is clear that they are beneficial to the world at large. There must be an Earl of Scroope, and you at present are the man." They were sitting together out upon the terrace after dinner, and for a time there was silence. His brother's arguments were too strong for the young lord, and it was out of his power to deal with one so dogmatic. But he did not forget the last words that had been spoken. It may be that "I shall not be the man very long," he said at last. "Any of us may die to-day or to-morrow," said Jack. "I have a kind of presentiment,--not that I shall die, but that I shall never see Scroope again. It seems as though I were certainly leaving for ever a place that has always been distasteful to me." "I never believe anything of presentiments." "No; of course not. You're not that sort of fellow at all. But I am. I can't think of myself as living here with a dozen old fogies about the place all doing nothing, touching their hats, my-lording me at every turn, looking respectable, but as idle as pickpockets." "You'll have to do it." "Perhaps I shall, but I don't think it." Then there was again silence for a time. "The less said about it the better, but I know that I've got a very difficult job before me in Ireland." "I don't envy you, Fred;--not that." "It is no use talking about it. It has got to be done, and the sooner done the better. What I shall do when it is done, I have not the most remote idea. Where I shall be living this day month I cannot guess. I can only say one thing certainly, and that is that I shall not come back here. There never was a fellow so loose about the world as I am." It was terrible that a young man who had it in his power to do so much good or so much evil should have had nothing to bind him to the better course! There was the motto of his house, and the promises which he had made to his uncle persuading him to that which was respectable and as he thought dull; and opposed to those influences there was an unconquerable feeling on his own part that he was altogether unfitted for the kind of life that was expected of him. Joined to this there was the fact of that unfortunate connection in Ireland from which he knew that it would be base to fly, and which, as it seemed to him, made any attempt at respectability impossible to him. Early on the following morning, as he was preparing to start, his aunt again sent for him. She came out to him in the sitting-room adjoining her bedroom and there embraced him. Her eyes were red with weeping, and her face wan with care. "Fred," she said; "dear Fred." "Good-bye, aunt. The last word I have to say is that I implore you not to leave Scroope as long as you are comfortable here." "You will come back?" "I cannot say anything certain about that." She still had hold of him with both hands and was looking into his face with loving, frightened, wistful eyes. "I know," she said, "that you will be thinking of what passed between us yesterday." "Certainly I shall remember it." "I have been praying for you, Fred; and now I tell you to look to your Father which is in Heaven for guidance, and not to take it from any poor frail sinful human being. Ask Him to keep your feet steady in the path, and your heart pure, and your thoughts free from wickedness. Oh, Fred, keep your mind and body clear before Him, and if you will kneel to Him for protection, He will show you a way through all difficulties." It was thus that she intended to tell him that his promise to her, made on the previous day, was to count for nought, and that he was to marry the girl if by no other way he could release himself from vice. But she could not bring herself to declare to him in plain terms that he had better marry Kate O'Hara, and bring his new Countess to Scroope in order that she might be fitly received by her predecessor. It might be that the Lord would still show him a way out of the two evils. But his brother was more clear of purpose with him, as they walked together out to the yard in which the young Earl was to get into his carriage. "Upon the whole, Fred, if I were you I should marry that girl." This he said quite abruptly. The young lord shook his head. "It may be that I do not know all the circumstances. If they be as I have heard them from you, I should marry her. Good-bye. Let me hear from you, when you have settled as to going anywhere." "I shall be sure to write," said Fred as he took the reins and seated him in the phaeton. His brother's advice he understood plainly, and that of his aunt he thought that he understood. But he shook his head again as he told himself that he could not now be guided by either of them. CHAPTER IX. AT LISCANNOR. The young lord slept one night at Ennis, and on the third morning after his departure from Scroope, started in his gig for Liscannor and the cliffs of Moher. He took a servant with him and a change of clothes. And as he went his heart was very heavy. He could not live a coward in his own esteem. Were it not so how willingly would he have saved himself from the misery of this journey, and have sent to his Kate to bid her come to him in England! He feared the priest, and he feared his Kate's mother;--not her dagger, but her eyes and scorching words. He altogether doubted his own powers to perform satisfactorily the task before him. He knew men who could do it. His brother Jack would do it, were it possible that his brother Jack should be in such a position. But for himself, he was conscious of a softness of heart, a feminine tenderness, which,--to do him justice,--he did not mistake for sincerity, that rendered him unfit for the task before him. The farther he journeyed from Scroope and the nearer that he found himself to the cliffs the stronger did the feeling grow within him, till it had become almost

general

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

women,--who in all other views of life are perhaps tender and soft-natured,--is one of the marvels of our social system. It is as though a certain line were drawn to include all women,--a line, but, alas, little more than a line,--by overstepping which, or rather by being known to have overstepped it, a woman ceases to be a woman in the estimation of her own sex. That the existence of this feeling has strong effect in saving women from passing the line, none of us can doubt. That its general tendency may be good rather than evil, is possible. But the hardness necessary to preserve the rule, a hardness which must be exclusively feminine but which is seldom wanting, is a marvellous feature in the female character. Lady Mary Quin probably thought but little on the subject. The women in the cottage on the cliff, who were befriended by Father Marty, were to her dangerous scheming Roman Catholic adventurers. The proper triumph of Protestant virtue required that they should fail in their adventures. She had always known that there would be something disreputable heard of them sooner or later. When the wretched Captain came into the neighbourhood,--and she soon heard of his coming,--she was gratified by feeling that her convictions had been correct. When the sad tidings as to poor Kate reached her ears, she had "known that it would be so." That such a girl should be made Countess of Scroope in reward for her wickedness would be to her an event horrible, almost contrary to Divine Providence,--a testimony that the Evil One was being allowed peculiar power at the moment, and would no doubt have been used in her own circles to show the ruin that had been brought upon the country by Catholic emancipation. She did not for a moment doubt that the present Earl should be encouraged to break any promises of marriage to the making of which he might have been allured. But it was not so with Lady Scroope. She, indeed, came to the same conclusion as her friend, but she did so with much difficulty and after many inward struggles. She understood and valued the customs of the magic line. In her heart of hearts she approved of a different code of morals for men and women. That which merited instant, and as regarded this world, perpetual condemnation in a woman, might in a man be very easily forgiven. A sigh, a shake of the head, and some small innocent stratagem that might lead to a happy marriage and settlement in life with increased income, would have been her treatment of such sin for the heirs of the great and wealthy. She knew that the world could not afford to ostracise the men,--though happily it might condemn the women. Nevertheless, when she came to the single separated instance, though her heart melted with no ruth for the woman,--in such cases the woman must be seen before the ruth is felt,--though pity for Kate O'Hara did not influence her, she did acknowledge the sanctity of a gentleman's word. If, as Lady Mary told her, and as she could so well believe, the present Earl of Scroope had given to this girl a promise that he would marry her, if he had bound himself by his pledged word, as a nobleman and a gentleman, how could she bid him become a perjured knave? Sans reproche! Was he thus to begin to live and to deserve the motto of his house by the conduct of his life? But then the evil that would be done was so great! She did not for a moment doubt all that Lady Mary told her about the girl. The worst of it had indeed been admitted. She was a Roman Catholic, ill-born, ill-connected, damaged utterly by a parent so low that nothing lower could possibly be raked out of the world's gutters. And now the girl herself was--a castaway. Such a marriage as that of which Lady Mary spoke would not only injure the house of Scroope for the present generation, but would tend to its final downfall. Would it not be known throughout all England that the next Earl of Scroope would be the grandson of a convict? Might there not be questions as to the legitimacy of the assumed heir? She herself knew of noble families which had been scattered, confounded, and almost ruined by such imprudence. Hitherto the family of Scroope had been continued from generation to generation without stain,--almost without stain. It had felt it to be a fortunate thing that the late heir had died because of the pollution of his wretched marriage. And now must evil as bad befall it, worse evil perhaps, through the folly of this young man? Must that proud motto be taken down from its place in the hall from very shame? But the evil had not been done yet, and it might be that her words could save the house from ruin and disgrace. She was a woman of whom it may be said that whatever difficulty she might have in deciding a question she could recognise the necessity of a decision and could abide by it when she had made it. It was with great difficulty that she could bring herself to think that an Earl of Scroope should be false to a promise by which he had seduced a woman, but she did succeed in bringing herself to such thought. Her very heart bled within her as she acknowledged the necessity. A lie to her was abominable. A lie, to be told by herself, would have been hideous to her. A lie to be told by him, was worse. As virtue, what she called virtue, was the one thing indispensable to women, so was truth the one thing indispensable to men. And yet she must tell him to lie, and having resolved so to tell him, must use all her intellect to defend the lie,--and to insist upon it. He was determined to return to Ireland, and there was nothing that she could do to prevent his return. She could not bid him shun a danger simply because it was a danger. He was his own master, and were she to do so he would only laugh at her. Of authority with him she had none. If she spoke, he must listen. Her position would secure so much to her from courtesy,--and were she to speak of the duty which he owed to his name and to the family he could hardly laugh. She therefore sent to him a message. Would he kindly go to her in her own room? Of course he attended to her wishes and went. "You mean to leave us to-morrow, Fred," she said. We all know the peculiar solemnity of a widow's dress,--the look of self-sacrifice on the part of the woman which the dress creates; and have perhaps recognised the fact that if the woman be deterred by no necessities of oeconomy in her toilet,--as in such material circumstances the splendour is more perfect if splendour be the object,--so also is the self-sacrifice more abject. And with this widow an appearance of melancholy solemnity, almost of woe, was natural to her. She was one whose life had ever been serious, solemn, and sad. Wealth and the outward pomp of circumstances had conferred upon her a certain dignity; and with that doubtless there had reached her some feeling of satisfaction. Religion too had given her comfort, and a routine of small duties had saved her from the wretchedness of ennui. But life with her had had no laughter, and had seldom smiled. Now in the first days of her widowhood she regarded her course as run, and looked upon herself as one who, in speaking, almost spoke from the tomb. All this had its effect upon the young lord. She did inspire him with a certain awe; and though her weeds gave her no authority, they did give her weight. "Yes; I shall start to-morrow," he replied. "And you still mean to go to Ireland?" "Yes;--I must go to Ireland. I shan't stay there, you know." Then she paused a moment before she proceeded. "Shall you see--that young woman when you are there?" "I suppose I shall see her." "Pray do not think that I desire to interfere with your private affairs. I know well that I have no right to assume over you any of that affectionate authority which a mother might have,--though in truth I love you as a son." "I would treat you just as I would my own mother." "No, Fred; that cannot be so. A mother would throw her arms round you and cling to you if she saw you going into danger. A mother would follow you, hoping that she might save you." "But there is no danger." "Ah, Fred, I fear there is." "What danger?" "You are now the head of one of the oldest and the noblest families in this which in my heart I believe to be the least sinful among the sinful nations of the wicked world." "I don't quite know how that may be;--I mean about the world. Of course I understand about the family." "But you love your country?" "Oh yes. I don't think there's any place like England,--to live in." "And England is what it is because there are still some left among us who are born to high rank and who know how to live up to the standard that is required of them. If ever there was such a man, your uncle was such a one." "I'm sure he was;--just what he ought to have been." "Honourable, true, affectionate, self-denying, affable to all men, but ever conscious of his rank, giving much because much had been given to him, asserting his nobility for the benefit of those around him, proud of his order for the sake of his country, bearing his sorrows with the dignity of silence, a nobleman all over, living on to the end sans reproche! He was a man whom you may dare to imitate, though to follow him may be difficult." She spoke not loudly, but clearly, looking him full in the face as she stood motionless before him. "He was all that," said Fred, almost overpowered by the sincere solemnity of his aunt's manner. "Will you try to walk in his footsteps?" "Two men can never be like one another in that way. I shall never be what he was. But I'll endeavour to get along as well as I can." "You will remember your order?" "Yes, I will. I do remember it. Mind you, aunt, I am not glad that I belong to it. I think I do understand about it all, and will do my best. But Jack would have made a better Earl than I shall do. That's the truth." "The Lord God has placed you,--and you must pray to Him that He will enable you to do your duty in that state of life to which it has pleased Him to call you. You are here and must bear his decree; and whether it be a privilege to enjoy, you must enjoy it, or a burden to bear, you must endure it." "It is so of course." "Knowing that, you must know also how incumbent it is upon you not to defile the stock from which you are sprung." "I suppose it has been defiled," said Fred, who had been looking into the history of the family. "The ninth Earl seems to have married nobody knows whom. And his son was my uncle's grandfather." This was a blow to Lady Scroope, but she bore it with dignity and courage. "You would hardly wish it to be said that you had copied the only one of your ancestors who did amiss. The world was rougher then than it is now, and he of whom you speak was a soldier." "I'm a soldier too," said the Earl. "Oh, Fred, is it thus you answer me! He was a soldier in rough times, when there were wars. I think he married when he was with the army under Marlborough." "I have not seen anything of that kind, certainly." "Your country is at peace, and your place is here, among your tenantry, at Scroope. You will promise me, Fred, that you will not marry this girl in Ireland?" "If I do, the fault will be all with that old maid at Castle Quin." "Do not say that, Fred. It is impossible. Let her conduct have been what it may, it cannot make that right in you which would have been wrong, or that wrong which would have been right." "She's a nasty meddlesome cat." "I will not talk about her. What good would it do? You cannot at any rate be surprised at my extreme anxiety. You did promise your uncle most solemnly that you would never marry this young lady." "If I did, that ought to be enough." He was now waxing angry and his face was becoming red. He would bear a good deal from his uncle's widow, but he felt his own power and was not prepared to bear much more. "Of course I cannot bind you. I know well how impotent I am,--how powerless to exercise control. But I think, Fred, that for your uncle's sake you will not refuse to repeat your promise to me, if you intend to keep it. Why is it that I am so anxious? It is for your sake, and for the sake of a name which should be dearer to you than it is even to me." "I have no intention of marrying at all." "Do not say that." "I do say it. I do not want to keep either you or Jack in the dark as to my future life. This young lady,--of whom, by the by, neither you nor Lady Mary Quin know anything, shall not become Countess of Scroope. To that I have made up my mind." "Thank God." "But as long as she lives I will make no woman Countess of Scroope. Let Jack marry this girl that he is in love with. They shall live here and have the house to themselves if they like it. He will look after the property and shall have whatever income old Mellerby thinks proper. I will keep the promise I made to my uncle,--but the keeping of it will make it impossible for me to live here. I would prefer now that you should say no more on the subject." Then he left her, quitting the room with some stateliness in his step, as though conscious that at such a moment as this it behoved him to assume his rank. The dowager sat alone all that morning thinking of the thing she had done. She did now believe that he was positively resolved not to marry Kate O'Hara, and she believed also that she herself had fixed him in that resolution. In doing so had she or had she not committed a deadly sin? She knew almost with accuracy what had occurred on the coast of Clare. A young girl, innocent herself up to that moment, had been enticed to her ruin by words of love which had been hallowed in her ears by vows of marriage. Those vows which had possessed so deadly an efficacy, were now to be simply broken! The cruelty to her would be damnable, devilish,--surely worthy of hell if any sin of man can be so called! And she, who could not divest herself of a certain pride taken in the austere morality of her own life, she who was now a widow anxious to devote her life solely to God, had persuaded the man to this sin, in order that her successor as Countess of Scroope might not be, in her opinion, unfitting for nobility! The young lord had promised her that he would be guilty of this sin, so damnable, so devilish, telling her as he did so, that as a consequence of his promise he must continue to live a life of wickedness! In the agony of her spirit she threw herself upon her knees and implored the Lord to pardon her and to guide her. But even while kneeling before the throne of heaven she could not drive the pride of birth out of her heart. That the young Earl might be saved from the damning sin and also from the polluting marriage;--that was the prayer she prayed. CHAPTER VIII. LOOSE ABOUT THE WORLD. The Countess was seen no more on that day,--was no more seen at least by either of the two brothers. Miss Mellerby was with her now and again, but on each occasion only for a few minutes, and reported that Lady Scroope was ill and could not appear at dinner. She would, however, see her nephew before he started on the following morning. Fred himself was much affected by the interview with his aunt. No doubt he had made a former promise to his uncle, similar to that which had now been exacted from him. No doubt he had himself resolved, after what he had thought to be mature consideration that he would not marry the girl, justifying to himself this decision by the deceit which he thought had been practised upon him in regard to Captain O'Hara. Nevertheless, he felt that by what had now occurred he was bound more strongly against the marriage than he had ever been bound before. His promise to his uncle might have been regarded as being obligatory only as long as his uncle lived. His own decision he would have been at liberty to change when he pleased to do so. But, though his aunt was almost nothing to him,--was not in very truth his aunt, but only the widow of his uncle, there had been a solemnity about the engagement as he had now made it with her, which he felt to be definitely binding. He must go to Ardkill prepared to tell them absolutely the truth. He would make any arrangement they pleased as to their future joint lives, so long as it was an arrangement by which Kate should not become Countess of Scroope. He did not attempt to conceal from himself the dreadful nature of the task before him. He knew what would be the indignation of the priest. He could picture to himself the ferocity of the mother, defending her young as a lioness would her whelp. He could imagine that that dagger might again be brought from its hiding place. And, worse than all, he would see the girl prostrate in her woe, and appealing to his love and to his oaths, when the truth as to her future life should be revealed to her. But yet he did not think of shunning the task before him. He could not endure to live a coward in his own esteem. He was unlike himself and very melancholy. "It has been so good of you to remain here," he said to Sophie Mellerby. They had now become intimate and almost attached to each other as friends. If she had allowed a spark of hope to become bright within her heart in regard to the young Earl that had long since been quenched. She had acknowledged to herself that had it been possible in other respects they would not have suited each other,--and now they were friends. "I love your aunt dearly and have been very glad to be with her." "I wish you would learn to love somebody else dearly." "Perhaps I shall, some day,--somebody else; though I don't at all know who it may be." "You know whom I mean." "I suppose I do." "And why not love him? Isn't he a good fellow?" "One can't love all the good fellows, Lord Scroope." "You'll never find a better one than he is." "Did he commission you to speak for him?" "You know he didn't. You know that he would be the last man in the world to do so?" "I was surprised." "But I had a reason for speaking." "No doubt." "I don't suppose it will have any effect with you;--but it is something you ought to know. If any man of my age can be supposed to have made up his mind on such a matter, you may believe that I have made up my mind that I will--never marry." "What nonsense, Lord Scroope." "Well;--yes; perhaps it is. But I am so convinced of it myself that I shall ask my brother to come and live here--permanently,--as master of the place. As he would have to leave his regiment it would of course be necessary that his position here should be settled,--and it shall be settled." "I most sincerely hope that you will always live here yourself." "It won't suit me. Circumstances have made it impossible. If he will not do so, nor my aunt, the house must be shut up. I am most anxious that this should not be done. I shall implore him to remain here, and to be here exactly as I should have been,--had things with me not have been so very unfortunate. He will at any rate have a house to offer you, if--" "Lord Scroope!" "I know what you are going to say, Sophie." "I don't know that I am as yet disposed to marry for the sake of a house to shelter me." "Of course you would say that; but still I think that I have been right to tell you. I am sure you will believe my assurance that Jack knows nothing of all this." That same evening he said nearly the same thing to his brother, though in doing so he made no special allusion to Sophie Mellerby. "I know that there is a great deal that a fellow should do, living in such a house as this, but I am not the man to do it. It's a very good kind of life, if you happen to be up to it. I am not, but you are." "My dear Fred, you can't change the accidents of birth." "In a great measure I can; or at least we can do so between us. You can't be Lord Scroope, but you can be master of Scroope Manor." "No I can't;--and, which is more, I won't. Don't think I am uncivil." "You are uncivil, Jack." "At any rate I am not ungrateful. I only want you to understand thoroughly that such an arrangement is out of the question. In no condition of life would I care to be the locum tenens for another man. You are now five or six and twenty. At thirty you may be a married man with an absolute need for your own house." "I would execute any deed." "So that I might be enabled to keep the owner of the property out of the only place that is fit for him! It is a power which I should not use, and do not wish to possess. Believe me, Fred, that a man is bound to submit himself to the circumstances by which he is surrounded, when it is clear that they are beneficial to the world at large. There must be an Earl of Scroope, and you at present are the man." They were sitting together out upon the terrace after dinner, and for a time there was silence. His brother's arguments were too strong for the young lord, and it was out of his power to deal with one so dogmatic. But he did not forget the last words that had been spoken. It may be that "I shall not be the man very long," he said at last. "Any of us may die to-day or to-morrow," said Jack. "I have a kind of presentiment,--not that I shall die, but that I shall never see Scroope again. It seems as though I were certainly leaving for ever a place that has always been distasteful to me." "I never believe anything of presentiments." "No; of course not. You're not that sort of fellow at all. But I am. I can't think of myself as living here with a dozen old fogies about the place all doing nothing, touching their hats, my-lording me at every turn, looking respectable, but as idle as pickpockets." "You'll have to do it." "Perhaps I shall, but I don't think it." Then there was again silence for a time. "The less said about it the better, but I know that I've got a very difficult job before me in Ireland." "I don't envy you, Fred;--not that." "It is no use talking about it. It has got to be done, and the sooner done the better. What I shall do when it is done, I have not the most remote idea. Where I shall be living this day month I cannot guess. I can only say one thing certainly, and that is that I shall not come back here. There never was a fellow so loose about the world as I am." It was terrible that a young man who had it in his power to do so much good or so much evil should have had nothing to bind him to the better course! There was the motto of his house, and the promises which he had made to his uncle persuading him to that which was respectable and as he thought dull; and opposed to those influences there was an unconquerable feeling on his own part that he was altogether unfitted for the kind of life that was expected of him. Joined to this there was the fact of that unfortunate connection in Ireland from which he knew that it would be base to fly, and which, as it seemed to him, made any attempt at respectability impossible to him. Early on the following morning, as he was preparing to start, his aunt again sent for him. She came out to him in the sitting-room adjoining her bedroom and there embraced him. Her eyes were red with weeping, and her face wan with care. "Fred," she said; "dear Fred." "Good-bye, aunt. The last word I have to say is that I implore you not to leave Scroope as long as you are comfortable here." "You will come back?" "I cannot say anything certain about that." She still had hold of him with both hands and was looking into his face with loving, frightened, wistful eyes. "I know," she said, "that you will be thinking of what passed between us yesterday." "Certainly I shall remember it." "I have been praying for you, Fred; and now I tell you to look to your Father which is in Heaven for guidance, and not to take it from any poor frail sinful human being. Ask Him to keep your feet steady in the path, and your heart pure, and your thoughts free from wickedness. Oh, Fred, keep your mind and body clear before Him, and if you will kneel to Him for protection, He will show you a way through all difficulties." It was thus that she intended to tell him that his promise to her, made on the previous day, was to count for nought, and that he was to marry the girl if by no other way he could release himself from vice. But she could not bring herself to declare to him in plain terms that he had better marry Kate O'Hara, and bring his new Countess to Scroope in order that she might be fitly received by her predecessor. It might be that the Lord would still show him a way out of the two evils. But his brother was more clear of purpose with him, as they walked together out to the yard in which the young Earl was to get into his carriage. "Upon the whole, Fred, if I were you I should marry that girl." This he said quite abruptly. The young lord shook his head. "It may be that I do not know all the circumstances. If they be as I have heard them from you, I should marry her. Good-bye. Let me hear from you, when you have settled as to going anywhere." "I shall be sure to write," said Fred as he took the reins and seated him in the phaeton. His brother's advice he understood plainly, and that of his aunt he thought that he understood. But he shook his head again as he told himself that he could not now be guided by either of them. CHAPTER IX. AT LISCANNOR. The young lord slept one night at Ennis, and on the third morning after his departure from Scroope, started in his gig for Liscannor and the cliffs of Moher. He took a servant with him and a change of clothes. And as he went his heart was very heavy. He could not live a coward in his own esteem. Were it not so how willingly would he have saved himself from the misery of this journey, and have sent to his Kate to bid her come to him in England! He feared the priest, and he feared his Kate's mother;--not her dagger, but her eyes and scorching words. He altogether doubted his own powers to perform satisfactorily the task before him. He knew men who could do it. His brother Jack would do it, were it possible that his brother Jack should be in such a position. But for himself, he was conscious of a softness of heart, a feminine tenderness, which,--to do him justice,--he did not mistake for sincerity, that rendered him unfit for the task before him. The farther he journeyed from Scroope and the nearer that he found himself to the cliffs the stronger did the feeling grow within him, till it had become almost

nobleman

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

women,--who in all other views of life are perhaps tender and soft-natured,--is one of the marvels of our social system. It is as though a certain line were drawn to include all women,--a line, but, alas, little more than a line,--by overstepping which, or rather by being known to have overstepped it, a woman ceases to be a woman in the estimation of her own sex. That the existence of this feeling has strong effect in saving women from passing the line, none of us can doubt. That its general tendency may be good rather than evil, is possible. But the hardness necessary to preserve the rule, a hardness which must be exclusively feminine but which is seldom wanting, is a marvellous feature in the female character. Lady Mary Quin probably thought but little on the subject. The women in the cottage on the cliff, who were befriended by Father Marty, were to her dangerous scheming Roman Catholic adventurers. The proper triumph of Protestant virtue required that they should fail in their adventures. She had always known that there would be something disreputable heard of them sooner or later. When the wretched Captain came into the neighbourhood,--and she soon heard of his coming,--she was gratified by feeling that her convictions had been correct. When the sad tidings as to poor Kate reached her ears, she had "known that it would be so." That such a girl should be made Countess of Scroope in reward for her wickedness would be to her an event horrible, almost contrary to Divine Providence,--a testimony that the Evil One was being allowed peculiar power at the moment, and would no doubt have been used in her own circles to show the ruin that had been brought upon the country by Catholic emancipation. She did not for a moment doubt that the present Earl should be encouraged to break any promises of marriage to the making of which he might have been allured. But it was not so with Lady Scroope. She, indeed, came to the same conclusion as her friend, but she did so with much difficulty and after many inward struggles. She understood and valued the customs of the magic line. In her heart of hearts she approved of a different code of morals for men and women. That which merited instant, and as regarded this world, perpetual condemnation in a woman, might in a man be very easily forgiven. A sigh, a shake of the head, and some small innocent stratagem that might lead to a happy marriage and settlement in life with increased income, would have been her treatment of such sin for the heirs of the great and wealthy. She knew that the world could not afford to ostracise the men,--though happily it might condemn the women. Nevertheless, when she came to the single separated instance, though her heart melted with no ruth for the woman,--in such cases the woman must be seen before the ruth is felt,--though pity for Kate O'Hara did not influence her, she did acknowledge the sanctity of a gentleman's word. If, as Lady Mary told her, and as she could so well believe, the present Earl of Scroope had given to this girl a promise that he would marry her, if he had bound himself by his pledged word, as a nobleman and a gentleman, how could she bid him become a perjured knave? Sans reproche! Was he thus to begin to live and to deserve the motto of his house by the conduct of his life? But then the evil that would be done was so great! She did not for a moment doubt all that Lady Mary told her about the girl. The worst of it had indeed been admitted. She was a Roman Catholic, ill-born, ill-connected, damaged utterly by a parent so low that nothing lower could possibly be raked out of the world's gutters. And now the girl herself was--a castaway. Such a marriage as that of which Lady Mary spoke would not only injure the house of Scroope for the present generation, but would tend to its final downfall. Would it not be known throughout all England that the next Earl of Scroope would be the grandson of a convict? Might there not be questions as to the legitimacy of the assumed heir? She herself knew of noble families which had been scattered, confounded, and almost ruined by such imprudence. Hitherto the family of Scroope had been continued from generation to generation without stain,--almost without stain. It had felt it to be a fortunate thing that the late heir had died because of the pollution of his wretched marriage. And now must evil as bad befall it, worse evil perhaps, through the folly of this young man? Must that proud motto be taken down from its place in the hall from very shame? But the evil had not been done yet, and it might be that her words could save the house from ruin and disgrace. She was a woman of whom it may be said that whatever difficulty she might have in deciding a question she could recognise the necessity of a decision and could abide by it when she had made it. It was with great difficulty that she could bring herself to think that an Earl of Scroope should be false to a promise by which he had seduced a woman, but she did succeed in bringing herself to such thought. Her very heart bled within her as she acknowledged the necessity. A lie to her was abominable. A lie, to be told by herself, would have been hideous to her. A lie to be told by him, was worse. As virtue, what she called virtue, was the one thing indispensable to women, so was truth the one thing indispensable to men. And yet she must tell him to lie, and having resolved so to tell him, must use all her intellect to defend the lie,--and to insist upon it. He was determined to return to Ireland, and there was nothing that she could do to prevent his return. She could not bid him shun a danger simply because it was a danger. He was his own master, and were she to do so he would only laugh at her. Of authority with him she had none. If she spoke, he must listen. Her position would secure so much to her from courtesy,--and were she to speak of the duty which he owed to his name and to the family he could hardly laugh. She therefore sent to him a message. Would he kindly go to her in her own room? Of course he attended to her wishes and went. "You mean to leave us to-morrow, Fred," she said. We all know the peculiar solemnity of a widow's dress,--the look of self-sacrifice on the part of the woman which the dress creates; and have perhaps recognised the fact that if the woman be deterred by no necessities of oeconomy in her toilet,--as in such material circumstances the splendour is more perfect if splendour be the object,--so also is the self-sacrifice more abject. And with this widow an appearance of melancholy solemnity, almost of woe, was natural to her. She was one whose life had ever been serious, solemn, and sad. Wealth and the outward pomp of circumstances had conferred upon her a certain dignity; and with that doubtless there had reached her some feeling of satisfaction. Religion too had given her comfort, and a routine of small duties had saved her from the wretchedness of ennui. But life with her had had no laughter, and had seldom smiled. Now in the first days of her widowhood she regarded her course as run, and looked upon herself as one who, in speaking, almost spoke from the tomb. All this had its effect upon the young lord. She did inspire him with a certain awe; and though her weeds gave her no authority, they did give her weight. "Yes; I shall start to-morrow," he replied. "And you still mean to go to Ireland?" "Yes;--I must go to Ireland. I shan't stay there, you know." Then she paused a moment before she proceeded. "Shall you see--that young woman when you are there?" "I suppose I shall see her." "Pray do not think that I desire to interfere with your private affairs. I know well that I have no right to assume over you any of that affectionate authority which a mother might have,--though in truth I love you as a son." "I would treat you just as I would my own mother." "No, Fred; that cannot be so. A mother would throw her arms round you and cling to you if she saw you going into danger. A mother would follow you, hoping that she might save you." "But there is no danger." "Ah, Fred, I fear there is." "What danger?" "You are now the head of one of the oldest and the noblest families in this which in my heart I believe to be the least sinful among the sinful nations of the wicked world." "I don't quite know how that may be;--I mean about the world. Of course I understand about the family." "But you love your country?" "Oh yes. I don't think there's any place like England,--to live in." "And England is what it is because there are still some left among us who are born to high rank and who know how to live up to the standard that is required of them. If ever there was such a man, your uncle was such a one." "I'm sure he was;--just what he ought to have been." "Honourable, true, affectionate, self-denying, affable to all men, but ever conscious of his rank, giving much because much had been given to him, asserting his nobility for the benefit of those around him, proud of his order for the sake of his country, bearing his sorrows with the dignity of silence, a nobleman all over, living on to the end sans reproche! He was a man whom you may dare to imitate, though to follow him may be difficult." She spoke not loudly, but clearly, looking him full in the face as she stood motionless before him. "He was all that," said Fred, almost overpowered by the sincere solemnity of his aunt's manner. "Will you try to walk in his footsteps?" "Two men can never be like one another in that way. I shall never be what he was. But I'll endeavour to get along as well as I can." "You will remember your order?" "Yes, I will. I do remember it. Mind you, aunt, I am not glad that I belong to it. I think I do understand about it all, and will do my best. But Jack would have made a better Earl than I shall do. That's the truth." "The Lord God has placed you,--and you must pray to Him that He will enable you to do your duty in that state of life to which it has pleased Him to call you. You are here and must bear his decree; and whether it be a privilege to enjoy, you must enjoy it, or a burden to bear, you must endure it." "It is so of course." "Knowing that, you must know also how incumbent it is upon you not to defile the stock from which you are sprung." "I suppose it has been defiled," said Fred, who had been looking into the history of the family. "The ninth Earl seems to have married nobody knows whom. And his son was my uncle's grandfather." This was a blow to Lady Scroope, but she bore it with dignity and courage. "You would hardly wish it to be said that you had copied the only one of your ancestors who did amiss. The world was rougher then than it is now, and he of whom you speak was a soldier." "I'm a soldier too," said the Earl. "Oh, Fred, is it thus you answer me! He was a soldier in rough times, when there were wars. I think he married when he was with the army under Marlborough." "I have not seen anything of that kind, certainly." "Your country is at peace, and your place is here, among your tenantry, at Scroope. You will promise me, Fred, that you will not marry this girl in Ireland?" "If I do, the fault will be all with that old maid at Castle Quin." "Do not say that, Fred. It is impossible. Let her conduct have been what it may, it cannot make that right in you which would have been wrong, or that wrong which would have been right." "She's a nasty meddlesome cat." "I will not talk about her. What good would it do? You cannot at any rate be surprised at my extreme anxiety. You did promise your uncle most solemnly that you would never marry this young lady." "If I did, that ought to be enough." He was now waxing angry and his face was becoming red. He would bear a good deal from his uncle's widow, but he felt his own power and was not prepared to bear much more. "Of course I cannot bind you. I know well how impotent I am,--how powerless to exercise control. But I think, Fred, that for your uncle's sake you will not refuse to repeat your promise to me, if you intend to keep it. Why is it that I am so anxious? It is for your sake, and for the sake of a name which should be dearer to you than it is even to me." "I have no intention of marrying at all." "Do not say that." "I do say it. I do not want to keep either you or Jack in the dark as to my future life. This young lady,--of whom, by the by, neither you nor Lady Mary Quin know anything, shall not become Countess of Scroope. To that I have made up my mind." "Thank God." "But as long as she lives I will make no woman Countess of Scroope. Let Jack marry this girl that he is in love with. They shall live here and have the house to themselves if they like it. He will look after the property and shall have whatever income old Mellerby thinks proper. I will keep the promise I made to my uncle,--but the keeping of it will make it impossible for me to live here. I would prefer now that you should say no more on the subject." Then he left her, quitting the room with some stateliness in his step, as though conscious that at such a moment as this it behoved him to assume his rank. The dowager sat alone all that morning thinking of the thing she had done. She did now believe that he was positively resolved not to marry Kate O'Hara, and she believed also that she herself had fixed him in that resolution. In doing so had she or had she not committed a deadly sin? She knew almost with accuracy what had occurred on the coast of Clare. A young girl, innocent herself up to that moment, had been enticed to her ruin by words of love which had been hallowed in her ears by vows of marriage. Those vows which had possessed so deadly an efficacy, were now to be simply broken! The cruelty to her would be damnable, devilish,--surely worthy of hell if any sin of man can be so called! And she, who could not divest herself of a certain pride taken in the austere morality of her own life, she who was now a widow anxious to devote her life solely to God, had persuaded the man to this sin, in order that her successor as Countess of Scroope might not be, in her opinion, unfitting for nobility! The young lord had promised her that he would be guilty of this sin, so damnable, so devilish, telling her as he did so, that as a consequence of his promise he must continue to live a life of wickedness! In the agony of her spirit she threw herself upon her knees and implored the Lord to pardon her and to guide her. But even while kneeling before the throne of heaven she could not drive the pride of birth out of her heart. That the young Earl might be saved from the damning sin and also from the polluting marriage;--that was the prayer she prayed. CHAPTER VIII. LOOSE ABOUT THE WORLD. The Countess was seen no more on that day,--was no more seen at least by either of the two brothers. Miss Mellerby was with her now and again, but on each occasion only for a few minutes, and reported that Lady Scroope was ill and could not appear at dinner. She would, however, see her nephew before he started on the following morning. Fred himself was much affected by the interview with his aunt. No doubt he had made a former promise to his uncle, similar to that which had now been exacted from him. No doubt he had himself resolved, after what he had thought to be mature consideration that he would not marry the girl, justifying to himself this decision by the deceit which he thought had been practised upon him in regard to Captain O'Hara. Nevertheless, he felt that by what had now occurred he was bound more strongly against the marriage than he had ever been bound before. His promise to his uncle might have been regarded as being obligatory only as long as his uncle lived. His own decision he would have been at liberty to change when he pleased to do so. But, though his aunt was almost nothing to him,--was not in very truth his aunt, but only the widow of his uncle, there had been a solemnity about the engagement as he had now made it with her, which he felt to be definitely binding. He must go to Ardkill prepared to tell them absolutely the truth. He would make any arrangement they pleased as to their future joint lives, so long as it was an arrangement by which Kate should not become Countess of Scroope. He did not attempt to conceal from himself the dreadful nature of the task before him. He knew what would be the indignation of the priest. He could picture to himself the ferocity of the mother, defending her young as a lioness would her whelp. He could imagine that that dagger might again be brought from its hiding place. And, worse than all, he would see the girl prostrate in her woe, and appealing to his love and to his oaths, when the truth as to her future life should be revealed to her. But yet he did not think of shunning the task before him. He could not endure to live a coward in his own esteem. He was unlike himself and very melancholy. "It has been so good of you to remain here," he said to Sophie Mellerby. They had now become intimate and almost attached to each other as friends. If she had allowed a spark of hope to become bright within her heart in regard to the young Earl that had long since been quenched. She had acknowledged to herself that had it been possible in other respects they would not have suited each other,--and now they were friends. "I love your aunt dearly and have been very glad to be with her." "I wish you would learn to love somebody else dearly." "Perhaps I shall, some day,--somebody else; though I don't at all know who it may be." "You know whom I mean." "I suppose I do." "And why not love him? Isn't he a good fellow?" "One can't love all the good fellows, Lord Scroope." "You'll never find a better one than he is." "Did he commission you to speak for him?" "You know he didn't. You know that he would be the last man in the world to do so?" "I was surprised." "But I had a reason for speaking." "No doubt." "I don't suppose it will have any effect with you;--but it is something you ought to know. If any man of my age can be supposed to have made up his mind on such a matter, you may believe that I have made up my mind that I will--never marry." "What nonsense, Lord Scroope." "Well;--yes; perhaps it is. But I am so convinced of it myself that I shall ask my brother to come and live here--permanently,--as master of the place. As he would have to leave his regiment it would of course be necessary that his position here should be settled,--and it shall be settled." "I most sincerely hope that you will always live here yourself." "It won't suit me. Circumstances have made it impossible. If he will not do so, nor my aunt, the house must be shut up. I am most anxious that this should not be done. I shall implore him to remain here, and to be here exactly as I should have been,--had things with me not have been so very unfortunate. He will at any rate have a house to offer you, if--" "Lord Scroope!" "I know what you are going to say, Sophie." "I don't know that I am as yet disposed to marry for the sake of a house to shelter me." "Of course you would say that; but still I think that I have been right to tell you. I am sure you will believe my assurance that Jack knows nothing of all this." That same evening he said nearly the same thing to his brother, though in doing so he made no special allusion to Sophie Mellerby. "I know that there is a great deal that a fellow should do, living in such a house as this, but I am not the man to do it. It's a very good kind of life, if you happen to be up to it. I am not, but you are." "My dear Fred, you can't change the accidents of birth." "In a great measure I can; or at least we can do so between us. You can't be Lord Scroope, but you can be master of Scroope Manor." "No I can't;--and, which is more, I won't. Don't think I am uncivil." "You are uncivil, Jack." "At any rate I am not ungrateful. I only want you to understand thoroughly that such an arrangement is out of the question. In no condition of life would I care to be the locum tenens for another man. You are now five or six and twenty. At thirty you may be a married man with an absolute need for your own house." "I would execute any deed." "So that I might be enabled to keep the owner of the property out of the only place that is fit for him! It is a power which I should not use, and do not wish to possess. Believe me, Fred, that a man is bound to submit himself to the circumstances by which he is surrounded, when it is clear that they are beneficial to the world at large. There must be an Earl of Scroope, and you at present are the man." They were sitting together out upon the terrace after dinner, and for a time there was silence. His brother's arguments were too strong for the young lord, and it was out of his power to deal with one so dogmatic. But he did not forget the last words that had been spoken. It may be that "I shall not be the man very long," he said at last. "Any of us may die to-day or to-morrow," said Jack. "I have a kind of presentiment,--not that I shall die, but that I shall never see Scroope again. It seems as though I were certainly leaving for ever a place that has always been distasteful to me." "I never believe anything of presentiments." "No; of course not. You're not that sort of fellow at all. But I am. I can't think of myself as living here with a dozen old fogies about the place all doing nothing, touching their hats, my-lording me at every turn, looking respectable, but as idle as pickpockets." "You'll have to do it." "Perhaps I shall, but I don't think it." Then there was again silence for a time. "The less said about it the better, but I know that I've got a very difficult job before me in Ireland." "I don't envy you, Fred;--not that." "It is no use talking about it. It has got to be done, and the sooner done the better. What I shall do when it is done, I have not the most remote idea. Where I shall be living this day month I cannot guess. I can only say one thing certainly, and that is that I shall not come back here. There never was a fellow so loose about the world as I am." It was terrible that a young man who had it in his power to do so much good or so much evil should have had nothing to bind him to the better course! There was the motto of his house, and the promises which he had made to his uncle persuading him to that which was respectable and as he thought dull; and opposed to those influences there was an unconquerable feeling on his own part that he was altogether unfitted for the kind of life that was expected of him. Joined to this there was the fact of that unfortunate connection in Ireland from which he knew that it would be base to fly, and which, as it seemed to him, made any attempt at respectability impossible to him. Early on the following morning, as he was preparing to start, his aunt again sent for him. She came out to him in the sitting-room adjoining her bedroom and there embraced him. Her eyes were red with weeping, and her face wan with care. "Fred," she said; "dear Fred." "Good-bye, aunt. The last word I have to say is that I implore you not to leave Scroope as long as you are comfortable here." "You will come back?" "I cannot say anything certain about that." She still had hold of him with both hands and was looking into his face with loving, frightened, wistful eyes. "I know," she said, "that you will be thinking of what passed between us yesterday." "Certainly I shall remember it." "I have been praying for you, Fred; and now I tell you to look to your Father which is in Heaven for guidance, and not to take it from any poor frail sinful human being. Ask Him to keep your feet steady in the path, and your heart pure, and your thoughts free from wickedness. Oh, Fred, keep your mind and body clear before Him, and if you will kneel to Him for protection, He will show you a way through all difficulties." It was thus that she intended to tell him that his promise to her, made on the previous day, was to count for nought, and that he was to marry the girl if by no other way he could release himself from vice. But she could not bring herself to declare to him in plain terms that he had better marry Kate O'Hara, and bring his new Countess to Scroope in order that she might be fitly received by her predecessor. It might be that the Lord would still show him a way out of the two evils. But his brother was more clear of purpose with him, as they walked together out to the yard in which the young Earl was to get into his carriage. "Upon the whole, Fred, if I were you I should marry that girl." This he said quite abruptly. The young lord shook his head. "It may be that I do not know all the circumstances. If they be as I have heard them from you, I should marry her. Good-bye. Let me hear from you, when you have settled as to going anywhere." "I shall be sure to write," said Fred as he took the reins and seated him in the phaeton. His brother's advice he understood plainly, and that of his aunt he thought that he understood. But he shook his head again as he told himself that he could not now be guided by either of them. CHAPTER IX. AT LISCANNOR. The young lord slept one night at Ennis, and on the third morning after his departure from Scroope, started in his gig for Liscannor and the cliffs of Moher. He took a servant with him and a change of clothes. And as he went his heart was very heavy. He could not live a coward in his own esteem. Were it not so how willingly would he have saved himself from the misery of this journey, and have sent to his Kate to bid her come to him in England! He feared the priest, and he feared his Kate's mother;--not her dagger, but her eyes and scorching words. He altogether doubted his own powers to perform satisfactorily the task before him. He knew men who could do it. His brother Jack would do it, were it possible that his brother Jack should be in such a position. But for himself, he was conscious of a softness of heart, a feminine tenderness, which,--to do him justice,--he did not mistake for sincerity, that rendered him unfit for the task before him. The farther he journeyed from Scroope and the nearer that he found himself to the cliffs the stronger did the feeling grow within him, till it had become almost

men

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

women,--who in all other views of life are perhaps tender and soft-natured,--is one of the marvels of our social system. It is as though a certain line were drawn to include all women,--a line, but, alas, little more than a line,--by overstepping which, or rather by being known to have overstepped it, a woman ceases to be a woman in the estimation of her own sex. That the existence of this feeling has strong effect in saving women from passing the line, none of us can doubt. That its general tendency may be good rather than evil, is possible. But the hardness necessary to preserve the rule, a hardness which must be exclusively feminine but which is seldom wanting, is a marvellous feature in the female character. Lady Mary Quin probably thought but little on the subject. The women in the cottage on the cliff, who were befriended by Father Marty, were to her dangerous scheming Roman Catholic adventurers. The proper triumph of Protestant virtue required that they should fail in their adventures. She had always known that there would be something disreputable heard of them sooner or later. When the wretched Captain came into the neighbourhood,--and she soon heard of his coming,--she was gratified by feeling that her convictions had been correct. When the sad tidings as to poor Kate reached her ears, she had "known that it would be so." That such a girl should be made Countess of Scroope in reward for her wickedness would be to her an event horrible, almost contrary to Divine Providence,--a testimony that the Evil One was being allowed peculiar power at the moment, and would no doubt have been used in her own circles to show the ruin that had been brought upon the country by Catholic emancipation. She did not for a moment doubt that the present Earl should be encouraged to break any promises of marriage to the making of which he might have been allured. But it was not so with Lady Scroope. She, indeed, came to the same conclusion as her friend, but she did so with much difficulty and after many inward struggles. She understood and valued the customs of the magic line. In her heart of hearts she approved of a different code of morals for men and women. That which merited instant, and as regarded this world, perpetual condemnation in a woman, might in a man be very easily forgiven. A sigh, a shake of the head, and some small innocent stratagem that might lead to a happy marriage and settlement in life with increased income, would have been her treatment of such sin for the heirs of the great and wealthy. She knew that the world could not afford to ostracise the men,--though happily it might condemn the women. Nevertheless, when she came to the single separated instance, though her heart melted with no ruth for the woman,--in such cases the woman must be seen before the ruth is felt,--though pity for Kate O'Hara did not influence her, she did acknowledge the sanctity of a gentleman's word. If, as Lady Mary told her, and as she could so well believe, the present Earl of Scroope had given to this girl a promise that he would marry her, if he had bound himself by his pledged word, as a nobleman and a gentleman, how could she bid him become a perjured knave? Sans reproche! Was he thus to begin to live and to deserve the motto of his house by the conduct of his life? But then the evil that would be done was so great! She did not for a moment doubt all that Lady Mary told her about the girl. The worst of it had indeed been admitted. She was a Roman Catholic, ill-born, ill-connected, damaged utterly by a parent so low that nothing lower could possibly be raked out of the world's gutters. And now the girl herself was--a castaway. Such a marriage as that of which Lady Mary spoke would not only injure the house of Scroope for the present generation, but would tend to its final downfall. Would it not be known throughout all England that the next Earl of Scroope would be the grandson of a convict? Might there not be questions as to the legitimacy of the assumed heir? She herself knew of noble families which had been scattered, confounded, and almost ruined by such imprudence. Hitherto the family of Scroope had been continued from generation to generation without stain,--almost without stain. It had felt it to be a fortunate thing that the late heir had died because of the pollution of his wretched marriage. And now must evil as bad befall it, worse evil perhaps, through the folly of this young man? Must that proud motto be taken down from its place in the hall from very shame? But the evil had not been done yet, and it might be that her words could save the house from ruin and disgrace. She was a woman of whom it may be said that whatever difficulty she might have in deciding a question she could recognise the necessity of a decision and could abide by it when she had made it. It was with great difficulty that she could bring herself to think that an Earl of Scroope should be false to a promise by which he had seduced a woman, but she did succeed in bringing herself to such thought. Her very heart bled within her as she acknowledged the necessity. A lie to her was abominable. A lie, to be told by herself, would have been hideous to her. A lie to be told by him, was worse. As virtue, what she called virtue, was the one thing indispensable to women, so was truth the one thing indispensable to men. And yet she must tell him to lie, and having resolved so to tell him, must use all her intellect to defend the lie,--and to insist upon it. He was determined to return to Ireland, and there was nothing that she could do to prevent his return. She could not bid him shun a danger simply because it was a danger. He was his own master, and were she to do so he would only laugh at her. Of authority with him she had none. If she spoke, he must listen. Her position would secure so much to her from courtesy,--and were she to speak of the duty which he owed to his name and to the family he could hardly laugh. She therefore sent to him a message. Would he kindly go to her in her own room? Of course he attended to her wishes and went. "You mean to leave us to-morrow, Fred," she said. We all know the peculiar solemnity of a widow's dress,--the look of self-sacrifice on the part of the woman which the dress creates; and have perhaps recognised the fact that if the woman be deterred by no necessities of oeconomy in her toilet,--as in such material circumstances the splendour is more perfect if splendour be the object,--so also is the self-sacrifice more abject. And with this widow an appearance of melancholy solemnity, almost of woe, was natural to her. She was one whose life had ever been serious, solemn, and sad. Wealth and the outward pomp of circumstances had conferred upon her a certain dignity; and with that doubtless there had reached her some feeling of satisfaction. Religion too had given her comfort, and a routine of small duties had saved her from the wretchedness of ennui. But life with her had had no laughter, and had seldom smiled. Now in the first days of her widowhood she regarded her course as run, and looked upon herself as one who, in speaking, almost spoke from the tomb. All this had its effect upon the young lord. She did inspire him with a certain awe; and though her weeds gave her no authority, they did give her weight. "Yes; I shall start to-morrow," he replied. "And you still mean to go to Ireland?" "Yes;--I must go to Ireland. I shan't stay there, you know." Then she paused a moment before she proceeded. "Shall you see--that young woman when you are there?" "I suppose I shall see her." "Pray do not think that I desire to interfere with your private affairs. I know well that I have no right to assume over you any of that affectionate authority which a mother might have,--though in truth I love you as a son." "I would treat you just as I would my own mother." "No, Fred; that cannot be so. A mother would throw her arms round you and cling to you if she saw you going into danger. A mother would follow you, hoping that she might save you." "But there is no danger." "Ah, Fred, I fear there is." "What danger?" "You are now the head of one of the oldest and the noblest families in this which in my heart I believe to be the least sinful among the sinful nations of the wicked world." "I don't quite know how that may be;--I mean about the world. Of course I understand about the family." "But you love your country?" "Oh yes. I don't think there's any place like England,--to live in." "And England is what it is because there are still some left among us who are born to high rank and who know how to live up to the standard that is required of them. If ever there was such a man, your uncle was such a one." "I'm sure he was;--just what he ought to have been." "Honourable, true, affectionate, self-denying, affable to all men, but ever conscious of his rank, giving much because much had been given to him, asserting his nobility for the benefit of those around him, proud of his order for the sake of his country, bearing his sorrows with the dignity of silence, a nobleman all over, living on to the end sans reproche! He was a man whom you may dare to imitate, though to follow him may be difficult." She spoke not loudly, but clearly, looking him full in the face as she stood motionless before him. "He was all that," said Fred, almost overpowered by the sincere solemnity of his aunt's manner. "Will you try to walk in his footsteps?" "Two men can never be like one another in that way. I shall never be what he was. But I'll endeavour to get along as well as I can." "You will remember your order?" "Yes, I will. I do remember it. Mind you, aunt, I am not glad that I belong to it. I think I do understand about it all, and will do my best. But Jack would have made a better Earl than I shall do. That's the truth." "The Lord God has placed you,--and you must pray to Him that He will enable you to do your duty in that state of life to which it has pleased Him to call you. You are here and must bear his decree; and whether it be a privilege to enjoy, you must enjoy it, or a burden to bear, you must endure it." "It is so of course." "Knowing that, you must know also how incumbent it is upon you not to defile the stock from which you are sprung." "I suppose it has been defiled," said Fred, who had been looking into the history of the family. "The ninth Earl seems to have married nobody knows whom. And his son was my uncle's grandfather." This was a blow to Lady Scroope, but she bore it with dignity and courage. "You would hardly wish it to be said that you had copied the only one of your ancestors who did amiss. The world was rougher then than it is now, and he of whom you speak was a soldier." "I'm a soldier too," said the Earl. "Oh, Fred, is it thus you answer me! He was a soldier in rough times, when there were wars. I think he married when he was with the army under Marlborough." "I have not seen anything of that kind, certainly." "Your country is at peace, and your place is here, among your tenantry, at Scroope. You will promise me, Fred, that you will not marry this girl in Ireland?" "If I do, the fault will be all with that old maid at Castle Quin." "Do not say that, Fred. It is impossible. Let her conduct have been what it may, it cannot make that right in you which would have been wrong, or that wrong which would have been right." "She's a nasty meddlesome cat." "I will not talk about her. What good would it do? You cannot at any rate be surprised at my extreme anxiety. You did promise your uncle most solemnly that you would never marry this young lady." "If I did, that ought to be enough." He was now waxing angry and his face was becoming red. He would bear a good deal from his uncle's widow, but he felt his own power and was not prepared to bear much more. "Of course I cannot bind you. I know well how impotent I am,--how powerless to exercise control. But I think, Fred, that for your uncle's sake you will not refuse to repeat your promise to me, if you intend to keep it. Why is it that I am so anxious? It is for your sake, and for the sake of a name which should be dearer to you than it is even to me." "I have no intention of marrying at all." "Do not say that." "I do say it. I do not want to keep either you or Jack in the dark as to my future life. This young lady,--of whom, by the by, neither you nor Lady Mary Quin know anything, shall not become Countess of Scroope. To that I have made up my mind." "Thank God." "But as long as she lives I will make no woman Countess of Scroope. Let Jack marry this girl that he is in love with. They shall live here and have the house to themselves if they like it. He will look after the property and shall have whatever income old Mellerby thinks proper. I will keep the promise I made to my uncle,--but the keeping of it will make it impossible for me to live here. I would prefer now that you should say no more on the subject." Then he left her, quitting the room with some stateliness in his step, as though conscious that at such a moment as this it behoved him to assume his rank. The dowager sat alone all that morning thinking of the thing she had done. She did now believe that he was positively resolved not to marry Kate O'Hara, and she believed also that she herself had fixed him in that resolution. In doing so had she or had she not committed a deadly sin? She knew almost with accuracy what had occurred on the coast of Clare. A young girl, innocent herself up to that moment, had been enticed to her ruin by words of love which had been hallowed in her ears by vows of marriage. Those vows which had possessed so deadly an efficacy, were now to be simply broken! The cruelty to her would be damnable, devilish,--surely worthy of hell if any sin of man can be so called! And she, who could not divest herself of a certain pride taken in the austere morality of her own life, she who was now a widow anxious to devote her life solely to God, had persuaded the man to this sin, in order that her successor as Countess of Scroope might not be, in her opinion, unfitting for nobility! The young lord had promised her that he would be guilty of this sin, so damnable, so devilish, telling her as he did so, that as a consequence of his promise he must continue to live a life of wickedness! In the agony of her spirit she threw herself upon her knees and implored the Lord to pardon her and to guide her. But even while kneeling before the throne of heaven she could not drive the pride of birth out of her heart. That the young Earl might be saved from the damning sin and also from the polluting marriage;--that was the prayer she prayed. CHAPTER VIII. LOOSE ABOUT THE WORLD. The Countess was seen no more on that day,--was no more seen at least by either of the two brothers. Miss Mellerby was with her now and again, but on each occasion only for a few minutes, and reported that Lady Scroope was ill and could not appear at dinner. She would, however, see her nephew before he started on the following morning. Fred himself was much affected by the interview with his aunt. No doubt he had made a former promise to his uncle, similar to that which had now been exacted from him. No doubt he had himself resolved, after what he had thought to be mature consideration that he would not marry the girl, justifying to himself this decision by the deceit which he thought had been practised upon him in regard to Captain O'Hara. Nevertheless, he felt that by what had now occurred he was bound more strongly against the marriage than he had ever been bound before. His promise to his uncle might have been regarded as being obligatory only as long as his uncle lived. His own decision he would have been at liberty to change when he pleased to do so. But, though his aunt was almost nothing to him,--was not in very truth his aunt, but only the widow of his uncle, there had been a solemnity about the engagement as he had now made it with her, which he felt to be definitely binding. He must go to Ardkill prepared to tell them absolutely the truth. He would make any arrangement they pleased as to their future joint lives, so long as it was an arrangement by which Kate should not become Countess of Scroope. He did not attempt to conceal from himself the dreadful nature of the task before him. He knew what would be the indignation of the priest. He could picture to himself the ferocity of the mother, defending her young as a lioness would her whelp. He could imagine that that dagger might again be brought from its hiding place. And, worse than all, he would see the girl prostrate in her woe, and appealing to his love and to his oaths, when the truth as to her future life should be revealed to her. But yet he did not think of shunning the task before him. He could not endure to live a coward in his own esteem. He was unlike himself and very melancholy. "It has been so good of you to remain here," he said to Sophie Mellerby. They had now become intimate and almost attached to each other as friends. If she had allowed a spark of hope to become bright within her heart in regard to the young Earl that had long since been quenched. She had acknowledged to herself that had it been possible in other respects they would not have suited each other,--and now they were friends. "I love your aunt dearly and have been very glad to be with her." "I wish you would learn to love somebody else dearly." "Perhaps I shall, some day,--somebody else; though I don't at all know who it may be." "You know whom I mean." "I suppose I do." "And why not love him? Isn't he a good fellow?" "One can't love all the good fellows, Lord Scroope." "You'll never find a better one than he is." "Did he commission you to speak for him?" "You know he didn't. You know that he would be the last man in the world to do so?" "I was surprised." "But I had a reason for speaking." "No doubt." "I don't suppose it will have any effect with you;--but it is something you ought to know. If any man of my age can be supposed to have made up his mind on such a matter, you may believe that I have made up my mind that I will--never marry." "What nonsense, Lord Scroope." "Well;--yes; perhaps it is. But I am so convinced of it myself that I shall ask my brother to come and live here--permanently,--as master of the place. As he would have to leave his regiment it would of course be necessary that his position here should be settled,--and it shall be settled." "I most sincerely hope that you will always live here yourself." "It won't suit me. Circumstances have made it impossible. If he will not do so, nor my aunt, the house must be shut up. I am most anxious that this should not be done. I shall implore him to remain here, and to be here exactly as I should have been,--had things with me not have been so very unfortunate. He will at any rate have a house to offer you, if--" "Lord Scroope!" "I know what you are going to say, Sophie." "I don't know that I am as yet disposed to marry for the sake of a house to shelter me." "Of course you would say that; but still I think that I have been right to tell you. I am sure you will believe my assurance that Jack knows nothing of all this." That same evening he said nearly the same thing to his brother, though in doing so he made no special allusion to Sophie Mellerby. "I know that there is a great deal that a fellow should do, living in such a house as this, but I am not the man to do it. It's a very good kind of life, if you happen to be up to it. I am not, but you are." "My dear Fred, you can't change the accidents of birth." "In a great measure I can; or at least we can do so between us. You can't be Lord Scroope, but you can be master of Scroope Manor." "No I can't;--and, which is more, I won't. Don't think I am uncivil." "You are uncivil, Jack." "At any rate I am not ungrateful. I only want you to understand thoroughly that such an arrangement is out of the question. In no condition of life would I care to be the locum tenens for another man. You are now five or six and twenty. At thirty you may be a married man with an absolute need for your own house." "I would execute any deed." "So that I might be enabled to keep the owner of the property out of the only place that is fit for him! It is a power which I should not use, and do not wish to possess. Believe me, Fred, that a man is bound to submit himself to the circumstances by which he is surrounded, when it is clear that they are beneficial to the world at large. There must be an Earl of Scroope, and you at present are the man." They were sitting together out upon the terrace after dinner, and for a time there was silence. His brother's arguments were too strong for the young lord, and it was out of his power to deal with one so dogmatic. But he did not forget the last words that had been spoken. It may be that "I shall not be the man very long," he said at last. "Any of us may die to-day or to-morrow," said Jack. "I have a kind of presentiment,--not that I shall die, but that I shall never see Scroope again. It seems as though I were certainly leaving for ever a place that has always been distasteful to me." "I never believe anything of presentiments." "No; of course not. You're not that sort of fellow at all. But I am. I can't think of myself as living here with a dozen old fogies about the place all doing nothing, touching their hats, my-lording me at every turn, looking respectable, but as idle as pickpockets." "You'll have to do it." "Perhaps I shall, but I don't think it." Then there was again silence for a time. "The less said about it the better, but I know that I've got a very difficult job before me in Ireland." "I don't envy you, Fred;--not that." "It is no use talking about it. It has got to be done, and the sooner done the better. What I shall do when it is done, I have not the most remote idea. Where I shall be living this day month I cannot guess. I can only say one thing certainly, and that is that I shall not come back here. There never was a fellow so loose about the world as I am." It was terrible that a young man who had it in his power to do so much good or so much evil should have had nothing to bind him to the better course! There was the motto of his house, and the promises which he had made to his uncle persuading him to that which was respectable and as he thought dull; and opposed to those influences there was an unconquerable feeling on his own part that he was altogether unfitted for the kind of life that was expected of him. Joined to this there was the fact of that unfortunate connection in Ireland from which he knew that it would be base to fly, and which, as it seemed to him, made any attempt at respectability impossible to him. Early on the following morning, as he was preparing to start, his aunt again sent for him. She came out to him in the sitting-room adjoining her bedroom and there embraced him. Her eyes were red with weeping, and her face wan with care. "Fred," she said; "dear Fred." "Good-bye, aunt. The last word I have to say is that I implore you not to leave Scroope as long as you are comfortable here." "You will come back?" "I cannot say anything certain about that." She still had hold of him with both hands and was looking into his face with loving, frightened, wistful eyes. "I know," she said, "that you will be thinking of what passed between us yesterday." "Certainly I shall remember it." "I have been praying for you, Fred; and now I tell you to look to your Father which is in Heaven for guidance, and not to take it from any poor frail sinful human being. Ask Him to keep your feet steady in the path, and your heart pure, and your thoughts free from wickedness. Oh, Fred, keep your mind and body clear before Him, and if you will kneel to Him for protection, He will show you a way through all difficulties." It was thus that she intended to tell him that his promise to her, made on the previous day, was to count for nought, and that he was to marry the girl if by no other way he could release himself from vice. But she could not bring herself to declare to him in plain terms that he had better marry Kate O'Hara, and bring his new Countess to Scroope in order that she might be fitly received by her predecessor. It might be that the Lord would still show him a way out of the two evils. But his brother was more clear of purpose with him, as they walked together out to the yard in which the young Earl was to get into his carriage. "Upon the whole, Fred, if I were you I should marry that girl." This he said quite abruptly. The young lord shook his head. "It may be that I do not know all the circumstances. If they be as I have heard them from you, I should marry her. Good-bye. Let me hear from you, when you have settled as to going anywhere." "I shall be sure to write," said Fred as he took the reins and seated him in the phaeton. His brother's advice he understood plainly, and that of his aunt he thought that he understood. But he shook his head again as he told himself that he could not now be guided by either of them. CHAPTER IX. AT LISCANNOR. The young lord slept one night at Ennis, and on the third morning after his departure from Scroope, started in his gig for Liscannor and the cliffs of Moher. He took a servant with him and a change of clothes. And as he went his heart was very heavy. He could not live a coward in his own esteem. Were it not so how willingly would he have saved himself from the misery of this journey, and have sent to his Kate to bid her come to him in England! He feared the priest, and he feared his Kate's mother;--not her dagger, but her eyes and scorching words. He altogether doubted his own powers to perform satisfactorily the task before him. He knew men who could do it. His brother Jack would do it, were it possible that his brother Jack should be in such a position. But for himself, he was conscious of a softness of heart, a feminine tenderness, which,--to do him justice,--he did not mistake for sincerity, that rendered him unfit for the task before him. The farther he journeyed from Scroope and the nearer that he found himself to the cliffs the stronger did the feeling grow within him, till it had become almost

small

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

women,--who in all other views of life are perhaps tender and soft-natured,--is one of the marvels of our social system. It is as though a certain line were drawn to include all women,--a line, but, alas, little more than a line,--by overstepping which, or rather by being known to have overstepped it, a woman ceases to be a woman in the estimation of her own sex. That the existence of this feeling has strong effect in saving women from passing the line, none of us can doubt. That its general tendency may be good rather than evil, is possible. But the hardness necessary to preserve the rule, a hardness which must be exclusively feminine but which is seldom wanting, is a marvellous feature in the female character. Lady Mary Quin probably thought but little on the subject. The women in the cottage on the cliff, who were befriended by Father Marty, were to her dangerous scheming Roman Catholic adventurers. The proper triumph of Protestant virtue required that they should fail in their adventures. She had always known that there would be something disreputable heard of them sooner or later. When the wretched Captain came into the neighbourhood,--and she soon heard of his coming,--she was gratified by feeling that her convictions had been correct. When the sad tidings as to poor Kate reached her ears, she had "known that it would be so." That such a girl should be made Countess of Scroope in reward for her wickedness would be to her an event horrible, almost contrary to Divine Providence,--a testimony that the Evil One was being allowed peculiar power at the moment, and would no doubt have been used in her own circles to show the ruin that had been brought upon the country by Catholic emancipation. She did not for a moment doubt that the present Earl should be encouraged to break any promises of marriage to the making of which he might have been allured. But it was not so with Lady Scroope. She, indeed, came to the same conclusion as her friend, but she did so with much difficulty and after many inward struggles. She understood and valued the customs of the magic line. In her heart of hearts she approved of a different code of morals for men and women. That which merited instant, and as regarded this world, perpetual condemnation in a woman, might in a man be very easily forgiven. A sigh, a shake of the head, and some small innocent stratagem that might lead to a happy marriage and settlement in life with increased income, would have been her treatment of such sin for the heirs of the great and wealthy. She knew that the world could not afford to ostracise the men,--though happily it might condemn the women. Nevertheless, when she came to the single separated instance, though her heart melted with no ruth for the woman,--in such cases the woman must be seen before the ruth is felt,--though pity for Kate O'Hara did not influence her, she did acknowledge the sanctity of a gentleman's word. If, as Lady Mary told her, and as she could so well believe, the present Earl of Scroope had given to this girl a promise that he would marry her, if he had bound himself by his pledged word, as a nobleman and a gentleman, how could she bid him become a perjured knave? Sans reproche! Was he thus to begin to live and to deserve the motto of his house by the conduct of his life? But then the evil that would be done was so great! She did not for a moment doubt all that Lady Mary told her about the girl. The worst of it had indeed been admitted. She was a Roman Catholic, ill-born, ill-connected, damaged utterly by a parent so low that nothing lower could possibly be raked out of the world's gutters. And now the girl herself was--a castaway. Such a marriage as that of which Lady Mary spoke would not only injure the house of Scroope for the present generation, but would tend to its final downfall. Would it not be known throughout all England that the next Earl of Scroope would be the grandson of a convict? Might there not be questions as to the legitimacy of the assumed heir? She herself knew of noble families which had been scattered, confounded, and almost ruined by such imprudence. Hitherto the family of Scroope had been continued from generation to generation without stain,--almost without stain. It had felt it to be a fortunate thing that the late heir had died because of the pollution of his wretched marriage. And now must evil as bad befall it, worse evil perhaps, through the folly of this young man? Must that proud motto be taken down from its place in the hall from very shame? But the evil had not been done yet, and it might be that her words could save the house from ruin and disgrace. She was a woman of whom it may be said that whatever difficulty she might have in deciding a question she could recognise the necessity of a decision and could abide by it when she had made it. It was with great difficulty that she could bring herself to think that an Earl of Scroope should be false to a promise by which he had seduced a woman, but she did succeed in bringing herself to such thought. Her very heart bled within her as she acknowledged the necessity. A lie to her was abominable. A lie, to be told by herself, would have been hideous to her. A lie to be told by him, was worse. As virtue, what she called virtue, was the one thing indispensable to women, so was truth the one thing indispensable to men. And yet she must tell him to lie, and having resolved so to tell him, must use all her intellect to defend the lie,--and to insist upon it. He was determined to return to Ireland, and there was nothing that she could do to prevent his return. She could not bid him shun a danger simply because it was a danger. He was his own master, and were she to do so he would only laugh at her. Of authority with him she had none. If she spoke, he must listen. Her position would secure so much to her from courtesy,--and were she to speak of the duty which he owed to his name and to the family he could hardly laugh. She therefore sent to him a message. Would he kindly go to her in her own room? Of course he attended to her wishes and went. "You mean to leave us to-morrow, Fred," she said. We all know the peculiar solemnity of a widow's dress,--the look of self-sacrifice on the part of the woman which the dress creates; and have perhaps recognised the fact that if the woman be deterred by no necessities of oeconomy in her toilet,--as in such material circumstances the splendour is more perfect if splendour be the object,--so also is the self-sacrifice more abject. And with this widow an appearance of melancholy solemnity, almost of woe, was natural to her. She was one whose life had ever been serious, solemn, and sad. Wealth and the outward pomp of circumstances had conferred upon her a certain dignity; and with that doubtless there had reached her some feeling of satisfaction. Religion too had given her comfort, and a routine of small duties had saved her from the wretchedness of ennui. But life with her had had no laughter, and had seldom smiled. Now in the first days of her widowhood she regarded her course as run, and looked upon herself as one who, in speaking, almost spoke from the tomb. All this had its effect upon the young lord. She did inspire him with a certain awe; and though her weeds gave her no authority, they did give her weight. "Yes; I shall start to-morrow," he replied. "And you still mean to go to Ireland?" "Yes;--I must go to Ireland. I shan't stay there, you know." Then she paused a moment before she proceeded. "Shall you see--that young woman when you are there?" "I suppose I shall see her." "Pray do not think that I desire to interfere with your private affairs. I know well that I have no right to assume over you any of that affectionate authority which a mother might have,--though in truth I love you as a son." "I would treat you just as I would my own mother." "No, Fred; that cannot be so. A mother would throw her arms round you and cling to you if she saw you going into danger. A mother would follow you, hoping that she might save you." "But there is no danger." "Ah, Fred, I fear there is." "What danger?" "You are now the head of one of the oldest and the noblest families in this which in my heart I believe to be the least sinful among the sinful nations of the wicked world." "I don't quite know how that may be;--I mean about the world. Of course I understand about the family." "But you love your country?" "Oh yes. I don't think there's any place like England,--to live in." "And England is what it is because there are still some left among us who are born to high rank and who know how to live up to the standard that is required of them. If ever there was such a man, your uncle was such a one." "I'm sure he was;--just what he ought to have been." "Honourable, true, affectionate, self-denying, affable to all men, but ever conscious of his rank, giving much because much had been given to him, asserting his nobility for the benefit of those around him, proud of his order for the sake of his country, bearing his sorrows with the dignity of silence, a nobleman all over, living on to the end sans reproche! He was a man whom you may dare to imitate, though to follow him may be difficult." She spoke not loudly, but clearly, looking him full in the face as she stood motionless before him. "He was all that," said Fred, almost overpowered by the sincere solemnity of his aunt's manner. "Will you try to walk in his footsteps?" "Two men can never be like one another in that way. I shall never be what he was. But I'll endeavour to get along as well as I can." "You will remember your order?" "Yes, I will. I do remember it. Mind you, aunt, I am not glad that I belong to it. I think I do understand about it all, and will do my best. But Jack would have made a better Earl than I shall do. That's the truth." "The Lord God has placed you,--and you must pray to Him that He will enable you to do your duty in that state of life to which it has pleased Him to call you. You are here and must bear his decree; and whether it be a privilege to enjoy, you must enjoy it, or a burden to bear, you must endure it." "It is so of course." "Knowing that, you must know also how incumbent it is upon you not to defile the stock from which you are sprung." "I suppose it has been defiled," said Fred, who had been looking into the history of the family. "The ninth Earl seems to have married nobody knows whom. And his son was my uncle's grandfather." This was a blow to Lady Scroope, but she bore it with dignity and courage. "You would hardly wish it to be said that you had copied the only one of your ancestors who did amiss. The world was rougher then than it is now, and he of whom you speak was a soldier." "I'm a soldier too," said the Earl. "Oh, Fred, is it thus you answer me! He was a soldier in rough times, when there were wars. I think he married when he was with the army under Marlborough." "I have not seen anything of that kind, certainly." "Your country is at peace, and your place is here, among your tenantry, at Scroope. You will promise me, Fred, that you will not marry this girl in Ireland?" "If I do, the fault will be all with that old maid at Castle Quin." "Do not say that, Fred. It is impossible. Let her conduct have been what it may, it cannot make that right in you which would have been wrong, or that wrong which would have been right." "She's a nasty meddlesome cat." "I will not talk about her. What good would it do? You cannot at any rate be surprised at my extreme anxiety. You did promise your uncle most solemnly that you would never marry this young lady." "If I did, that ought to be enough." He was now waxing angry and his face was becoming red. He would bear a good deal from his uncle's widow, but he felt his own power and was not prepared to bear much more. "Of course I cannot bind you. I know well how impotent I am,--how powerless to exercise control. But I think, Fred, that for your uncle's sake you will not refuse to repeat your promise to me, if you intend to keep it. Why is it that I am so anxious? It is for your sake, and for the sake of a name which should be dearer to you than it is even to me." "I have no intention of marrying at all." "Do not say that." "I do say it. I do not want to keep either you or Jack in the dark as to my future life. This young lady,--of whom, by the by, neither you nor Lady Mary Quin know anything, shall not become Countess of Scroope. To that I have made up my mind." "Thank God." "But as long as she lives I will make no woman Countess of Scroope. Let Jack marry this girl that he is in love with. They shall live here and have the house to themselves if they like it. He will look after the property and shall have whatever income old Mellerby thinks proper. I will keep the promise I made to my uncle,--but the keeping of it will make it impossible for me to live here. I would prefer now that you should say no more on the subject." Then he left her, quitting the room with some stateliness in his step, as though conscious that at such a moment as this it behoved him to assume his rank. The dowager sat alone all that morning thinking of the thing she had done. She did now believe that he was positively resolved not to marry Kate O'Hara, and she believed also that she herself had fixed him in that resolution. In doing so had she or had she not committed a deadly sin? She knew almost with accuracy what had occurred on the coast of Clare. A young girl, innocent herself up to that moment, had been enticed to her ruin by words of love which had been hallowed in her ears by vows of marriage. Those vows which had possessed so deadly an efficacy, were now to be simply broken! The cruelty to her would be damnable, devilish,--surely worthy of hell if any sin of man can be so called! And she, who could not divest herself of a certain pride taken in the austere morality of her own life, she who was now a widow anxious to devote her life solely to God, had persuaded the man to this sin, in order that her successor as Countess of Scroope might not be, in her opinion, unfitting for nobility! The young lord had promised her that he would be guilty of this sin, so damnable, so devilish, telling her as he did so, that as a consequence of his promise he must continue to live a life of wickedness! In the agony of her spirit she threw herself upon her knees and implored the Lord to pardon her and to guide her. But even while kneeling before the throne of heaven she could not drive the pride of birth out of her heart. That the young Earl might be saved from the damning sin and also from the polluting marriage;--that was the prayer she prayed. CHAPTER VIII. LOOSE ABOUT THE WORLD. The Countess was seen no more on that day,--was no more seen at least by either of the two brothers. Miss Mellerby was with her now and again, but on each occasion only for a few minutes, and reported that Lady Scroope was ill and could not appear at dinner. She would, however, see her nephew before he started on the following morning. Fred himself was much affected by the interview with his aunt. No doubt he had made a former promise to his uncle, similar to that which had now been exacted from him. No doubt he had himself resolved, after what he had thought to be mature consideration that he would not marry the girl, justifying to himself this decision by the deceit which he thought had been practised upon him in regard to Captain O'Hara. Nevertheless, he felt that by what had now occurred he was bound more strongly against the marriage than he had ever been bound before. His promise to his uncle might have been regarded as being obligatory only as long as his uncle lived. His own decision he would have been at liberty to change when he pleased to do so. But, though his aunt was almost nothing to him,--was not in very truth his aunt, but only the widow of his uncle, there had been a solemnity about the engagement as he had now made it with her, which he felt to be definitely binding. He must go to Ardkill prepared to tell them absolutely the truth. He would make any arrangement they pleased as to their future joint lives, so long as it was an arrangement by which Kate should not become Countess of Scroope. He did not attempt to conceal from himself the dreadful nature of the task before him. He knew what would be the indignation of the priest. He could picture to himself the ferocity of the mother, defending her young as a lioness would her whelp. He could imagine that that dagger might again be brought from its hiding place. And, worse than all, he would see the girl prostrate in her woe, and appealing to his love and to his oaths, when the truth as to her future life should be revealed to her. But yet he did not think of shunning the task before him. He could not endure to live a coward in his own esteem. He was unlike himself and very melancholy. "It has been so good of you to remain here," he said to Sophie Mellerby. They had now become intimate and almost attached to each other as friends. If she had allowed a spark of hope to become bright within her heart in regard to the young Earl that had long since been quenched. She had acknowledged to herself that had it been possible in other respects they would not have suited each other,--and now they were friends. "I love your aunt dearly and have been very glad to be with her." "I wish you would learn to love somebody else dearly." "Perhaps I shall, some day,--somebody else; though I don't at all know who it may be." "You know whom I mean." "I suppose I do." "And why not love him? Isn't he a good fellow?" "One can't love all the good fellows, Lord Scroope." "You'll never find a better one than he is." "Did he commission you to speak for him?" "You know he didn't. You know that he would be the last man in the world to do so?" "I was surprised." "But I had a reason for speaking." "No doubt." "I don't suppose it will have any effect with you;--but it is something you ought to know. If any man of my age can be supposed to have made up his mind on such a matter, you may believe that I have made up my mind that I will--never marry." "What nonsense, Lord Scroope." "Well;--yes; perhaps it is. But I am so convinced of it myself that I shall ask my brother to come and live here--permanently,--as master of the place. As he would have to leave his regiment it would of course be necessary that his position here should be settled,--and it shall be settled." "I most sincerely hope that you will always live here yourself." "It won't suit me. Circumstances have made it impossible. If he will not do so, nor my aunt, the house must be shut up. I am most anxious that this should not be done. I shall implore him to remain here, and to be here exactly as I should have been,--had things with me not have been so very unfortunate. He will at any rate have a house to offer you, if--" "Lord Scroope!" "I know what you are going to say, Sophie." "I don't know that I am as yet disposed to marry for the sake of a house to shelter me." "Of course you would say that; but still I think that I have been right to tell you. I am sure you will believe my assurance that Jack knows nothing of all this." That same evening he said nearly the same thing to his brother, though in doing so he made no special allusion to Sophie Mellerby. "I know that there is a great deal that a fellow should do, living in such a house as this, but I am not the man to do it. It's a very good kind of life, if you happen to be up to it. I am not, but you are." "My dear Fred, you can't change the accidents of birth." "In a great measure I can; or at least we can do so between us. You can't be Lord Scroope, but you can be master of Scroope Manor." "No I can't;--and, which is more, I won't. Don't think I am uncivil." "You are uncivil, Jack." "At any rate I am not ungrateful. I only want you to understand thoroughly that such an arrangement is out of the question. In no condition of life would I care to be the locum tenens for another man. You are now five or six and twenty. At thirty you may be a married man with an absolute need for your own house." "I would execute any deed." "So that I might be enabled to keep the owner of the property out of the only place that is fit for him! It is a power which I should not use, and do not wish to possess. Believe me, Fred, that a man is bound to submit himself to the circumstances by which he is surrounded, when it is clear that they are beneficial to the world at large. There must be an Earl of Scroope, and you at present are the man." They were sitting together out upon the terrace after dinner, and for a time there was silence. His brother's arguments were too strong for the young lord, and it was out of his power to deal with one so dogmatic. But he did not forget the last words that had been spoken. It may be that "I shall not be the man very long," he said at last. "Any of us may die to-day or to-morrow," said Jack. "I have a kind of presentiment,--not that I shall die, but that I shall never see Scroope again. It seems as though I were certainly leaving for ever a place that has always been distasteful to me." "I never believe anything of presentiments." "No; of course not. You're not that sort of fellow at all. But I am. I can't think of myself as living here with a dozen old fogies about the place all doing nothing, touching their hats, my-lording me at every turn, looking respectable, but as idle as pickpockets." "You'll have to do it." "Perhaps I shall, but I don't think it." Then there was again silence for a time. "The less said about it the better, but I know that I've got a very difficult job before me in Ireland." "I don't envy you, Fred;--not that." "It is no use talking about it. It has got to be done, and the sooner done the better. What I shall do when it is done, I have not the most remote idea. Where I shall be living this day month I cannot guess. I can only say one thing certainly, and that is that I shall not come back here. There never was a fellow so loose about the world as I am." It was terrible that a young man who had it in his power to do so much good or so much evil should have had nothing to bind him to the better course! There was the motto of his house, and the promises which he had made to his uncle persuading him to that which was respectable and as he thought dull; and opposed to those influences there was an unconquerable feeling on his own part that he was altogether unfitted for the kind of life that was expected of him. Joined to this there was the fact of that unfortunate connection in Ireland from which he knew that it would be base to fly, and which, as it seemed to him, made any attempt at respectability impossible to him. Early on the following morning, as he was preparing to start, his aunt again sent for him. She came out to him in the sitting-room adjoining her bedroom and there embraced him. Her eyes were red with weeping, and her face wan with care. "Fred," she said; "dear Fred." "Good-bye, aunt. The last word I have to say is that I implore you not to leave Scroope as long as you are comfortable here." "You will come back?" "I cannot say anything certain about that." She still had hold of him with both hands and was looking into his face with loving, frightened, wistful eyes. "I know," she said, "that you will be thinking of what passed between us yesterday." "Certainly I shall remember it." "I have been praying for you, Fred; and now I tell you to look to your Father which is in Heaven for guidance, and not to take it from any poor frail sinful human being. Ask Him to keep your feet steady in the path, and your heart pure, and your thoughts free from wickedness. Oh, Fred, keep your mind and body clear before Him, and if you will kneel to Him for protection, He will show you a way through all difficulties." It was thus that she intended to tell him that his promise to her, made on the previous day, was to count for nought, and that he was to marry the girl if by no other way he could release himself from vice. But she could not bring herself to declare to him in plain terms that he had better marry Kate O'Hara, and bring his new Countess to Scroope in order that she might be fitly received by her predecessor. It might be that the Lord would still show him a way out of the two evils. But his brother was more clear of purpose with him, as they walked together out to the yard in which the young Earl was to get into his carriage. "Upon the whole, Fred, if I were you I should marry that girl." This he said quite abruptly. The young lord shook his head. "It may be that I do not know all the circumstances. If they be as I have heard them from you, I should marry her. Good-bye. Let me hear from you, when you have settled as to going anywhere." "I shall be sure to write," said Fred as he took the reins and seated him in the phaeton. His brother's advice he understood plainly, and that of his aunt he thought that he understood. But he shook his head again as he told himself that he could not now be guided by either of them. CHAPTER IX. AT LISCANNOR. The young lord slept one night at Ennis, and on the third morning after his departure from Scroope, started in his gig for Liscannor and the cliffs of Moher. He took a servant with him and a change of clothes. And as he went his heart was very heavy. He could not live a coward in his own esteem. Were it not so how willingly would he have saved himself from the misery of this journey, and have sent to his Kate to bid her come to him in England! He feared the priest, and he feared his Kate's mother;--not her dagger, but her eyes and scorching words. He altogether doubted his own powers to perform satisfactorily the task before him. He knew men who could do it. His brother Jack would do it, were it possible that his brother Jack should be in such a position. But for himself, he was conscious of a softness of heart, a feminine tenderness, which,--to do him justice,--he did not mistake for sincerity, that rendered him unfit for the task before him. The farther he journeyed from Scroope and the nearer that he found himself to the cliffs the stronger did the feeling grow within him, till it had become almost

yes

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

women,--who in all other views of life are perhaps tender and soft-natured,--is one of the marvels of our social system. It is as though a certain line were drawn to include all women,--a line, but, alas, little more than a line,--by overstepping which, or rather by being known to have overstepped it, a woman ceases to be a woman in the estimation of her own sex. That the existence of this feeling has strong effect in saving women from passing the line, none of us can doubt. That its general tendency may be good rather than evil, is possible. But the hardness necessary to preserve the rule, a hardness which must be exclusively feminine but which is seldom wanting, is a marvellous feature in the female character. Lady Mary Quin probably thought but little on the subject. The women in the cottage on the cliff, who were befriended by Father Marty, were to her dangerous scheming Roman Catholic adventurers. The proper triumph of Protestant virtue required that they should fail in their adventures. She had always known that there would be something disreputable heard of them sooner or later. When the wretched Captain came into the neighbourhood,--and she soon heard of his coming,--she was gratified by feeling that her convictions had been correct. When the sad tidings as to poor Kate reached her ears, she had "known that it would be so." That such a girl should be made Countess of Scroope in reward for her wickedness would be to her an event horrible, almost contrary to Divine Providence,--a testimony that the Evil One was being allowed peculiar power at the moment, and would no doubt have been used in her own circles to show the ruin that had been brought upon the country by Catholic emancipation. She did not for a moment doubt that the present Earl should be encouraged to break any promises of marriage to the making of which he might have been allured. But it was not so with Lady Scroope. She, indeed, came to the same conclusion as her friend, but she did so with much difficulty and after many inward struggles. She understood and valued the customs of the magic line. In her heart of hearts she approved of a different code of morals for men and women. That which merited instant, and as regarded this world, perpetual condemnation in a woman, might in a man be very easily forgiven. A sigh, a shake of the head, and some small innocent stratagem that might lead to a happy marriage and settlement in life with increased income, would have been her treatment of such sin for the heirs of the great and wealthy. She knew that the world could not afford to ostracise the men,--though happily it might condemn the women. Nevertheless, when she came to the single separated instance, though her heart melted with no ruth for the woman,--in such cases the woman must be seen before the ruth is felt,--though pity for Kate O'Hara did not influence her, she did acknowledge the sanctity of a gentleman's word. If, as Lady Mary told her, and as she could so well believe, the present Earl of Scroope had given to this girl a promise that he would marry her, if he had bound himself by his pledged word, as a nobleman and a gentleman, how could she bid him become a perjured knave? Sans reproche! Was he thus to begin to live and to deserve the motto of his house by the conduct of his life? But then the evil that would be done was so great! She did not for a moment doubt all that Lady Mary told her about the girl. The worst of it had indeed been admitted. She was a Roman Catholic, ill-born, ill-connected, damaged utterly by a parent so low that nothing lower could possibly be raked out of the world's gutters. And now the girl herself was--a castaway. Such a marriage as that of which Lady Mary spoke would not only injure the house of Scroope for the present generation, but would tend to its final downfall. Would it not be known throughout all England that the next Earl of Scroope would be the grandson of a convict? Might there not be questions as to the legitimacy of the assumed heir? She herself knew of noble families which had been scattered, confounded, and almost ruined by such imprudence. Hitherto the family of Scroope had been continued from generation to generation without stain,--almost without stain. It had felt it to be a fortunate thing that the late heir had died because of the pollution of his wretched marriage. And now must evil as bad befall it, worse evil perhaps, through the folly of this young man? Must that proud motto be taken down from its place in the hall from very shame? But the evil had not been done yet, and it might be that her words could save the house from ruin and disgrace. She was a woman of whom it may be said that whatever difficulty she might have in deciding a question she could recognise the necessity of a decision and could abide by it when she had made it. It was with great difficulty that she could bring herself to think that an Earl of Scroope should be false to a promise by which he had seduced a woman, but she did succeed in bringing herself to such thought. Her very heart bled within her as she acknowledged the necessity. A lie to her was abominable. A lie, to be told by herself, would have been hideous to her. A lie to be told by him, was worse. As virtue, what she called virtue, was the one thing indispensable to women, so was truth the one thing indispensable to men. And yet she must tell him to lie, and having resolved so to tell him, must use all her intellect to defend the lie,--and to insist upon it. He was determined to return to Ireland, and there was nothing that she could do to prevent his return. She could not bid him shun a danger simply because it was a danger. He was his own master, and were she to do so he would only laugh at her. Of authority with him she had none. If she spoke, he must listen. Her position would secure so much to her from courtesy,--and were she to speak of the duty which he owed to his name and to the family he could hardly laugh. She therefore sent to him a message. Would he kindly go to her in her own room? Of course he attended to her wishes and went. "You mean to leave us to-morrow, Fred," she said. We all know the peculiar solemnity of a widow's dress,--the look of self-sacrifice on the part of the woman which the dress creates; and have perhaps recognised the fact that if the woman be deterred by no necessities of oeconomy in her toilet,--as in such material circumstances the splendour is more perfect if splendour be the object,--so also is the self-sacrifice more abject. And with this widow an appearance of melancholy solemnity, almost of woe, was natural to her. She was one whose life had ever been serious, solemn, and sad. Wealth and the outward pomp of circumstances had conferred upon her a certain dignity; and with that doubtless there had reached her some feeling of satisfaction. Religion too had given her comfort, and a routine of small duties had saved her from the wretchedness of ennui. But life with her had had no laughter, and had seldom smiled. Now in the first days of her widowhood she regarded her course as run, and looked upon herself as one who, in speaking, almost spoke from the tomb. All this had its effect upon the young lord. She did inspire him with a certain awe; and though her weeds gave her no authority, they did give her weight. "Yes; I shall start to-morrow," he replied. "And you still mean to go to Ireland?" "Yes;--I must go to Ireland. I shan't stay there, you know." Then she paused a moment before she proceeded. "Shall you see--that young woman when you are there?" "I suppose I shall see her." "Pray do not think that I desire to interfere with your private affairs. I know well that I have no right to assume over you any of that affectionate authority which a mother might have,--though in truth I love you as a son." "I would treat you just as I would my own mother." "No, Fred; that cannot be so. A mother would throw her arms round you and cling to you if she saw you going into danger. A mother would follow you, hoping that she might save you." "But there is no danger." "Ah, Fred, I fear there is." "What danger?" "You are now the head of one of the oldest and the noblest families in this which in my heart I believe to be the least sinful among the sinful nations of the wicked world." "I don't quite know how that may be;--I mean about the world. Of course I understand about the family." "But you love your country?" "Oh yes. I don't think there's any place like England,--to live in." "And England is what it is because there are still some left among us who are born to high rank and who know how to live up to the standard that is required of them. If ever there was such a man, your uncle was such a one." "I'm sure he was;--just what he ought to have been." "Honourable, true, affectionate, self-denying, affable to all men, but ever conscious of his rank, giving much because much had been given to him, asserting his nobility for the benefit of those around him, proud of his order for the sake of his country, bearing his sorrows with the dignity of silence, a nobleman all over, living on to the end sans reproche! He was a man whom you may dare to imitate, though to follow him may be difficult." She spoke not loudly, but clearly, looking him full in the face as she stood motionless before him. "He was all that," said Fred, almost overpowered by the sincere solemnity of his aunt's manner. "Will you try to walk in his footsteps?" "Two men can never be like one another in that way. I shall never be what he was. But I'll endeavour to get along as well as I can." "You will remember your order?" "Yes, I will. I do remember it. Mind you, aunt, I am not glad that I belong to it. I think I do understand about it all, and will do my best. But Jack would have made a better Earl than I shall do. That's the truth." "The Lord God has placed you,--and you must pray to Him that He will enable you to do your duty in that state of life to which it has pleased Him to call you. You are here and must bear his decree; and whether it be a privilege to enjoy, you must enjoy it, or a burden to bear, you must endure it." "It is so of course." "Knowing that, you must know also how incumbent it is upon you not to defile the stock from which you are sprung." "I suppose it has been defiled," said Fred, who had been looking into the history of the family. "The ninth Earl seems to have married nobody knows whom. And his son was my uncle's grandfather." This was a blow to Lady Scroope, but she bore it with dignity and courage. "You would hardly wish it to be said that you had copied the only one of your ancestors who did amiss. The world was rougher then than it is now, and he of whom you speak was a soldier." "I'm a soldier too," said the Earl. "Oh, Fred, is it thus you answer me! He was a soldier in rough times, when there were wars. I think he married when he was with the army under Marlborough." "I have not seen anything of that kind, certainly." "Your country is at peace, and your place is here, among your tenantry, at Scroope. You will promise me, Fred, that you will not marry this girl in Ireland?" "If I do, the fault will be all with that old maid at Castle Quin." "Do not say that, Fred. It is impossible. Let her conduct have been what it may, it cannot make that right in you which would have been wrong, or that wrong which would have been right." "She's a nasty meddlesome cat." "I will not talk about her. What good would it do? You cannot at any rate be surprised at my extreme anxiety. You did promise your uncle most solemnly that you would never marry this young lady." "If I did, that ought to be enough." He was now waxing angry and his face was becoming red. He would bear a good deal from his uncle's widow, but he felt his own power and was not prepared to bear much more. "Of course I cannot bind you. I know well how impotent I am,--how powerless to exercise control. But I think, Fred, that for your uncle's sake you will not refuse to repeat your promise to me, if you intend to keep it. Why is it that I am so anxious? It is for your sake, and for the sake of a name which should be dearer to you than it is even to me." "I have no intention of marrying at all." "Do not say that." "I do say it. I do not want to keep either you or Jack in the dark as to my future life. This young lady,--of whom, by the by, neither you nor Lady Mary Quin know anything, shall not become Countess of Scroope. To that I have made up my mind." "Thank God." "But as long as she lives I will make no woman Countess of Scroope. Let Jack marry this girl that he is in love with. They shall live here and have the house to themselves if they like it. He will look after the property and shall have whatever income old Mellerby thinks proper. I will keep the promise I made to my uncle,--but the keeping of it will make it impossible for me to live here. I would prefer now that you should say no more on the subject." Then he left her, quitting the room with some stateliness in his step, as though conscious that at such a moment as this it behoved him to assume his rank. The dowager sat alone all that morning thinking of the thing she had done. She did now believe that he was positively resolved not to marry Kate O'Hara, and she believed also that she herself had fixed him in that resolution. In doing so had she or had she not committed a deadly sin? She knew almost with accuracy what had occurred on the coast of Clare. A young girl, innocent herself up to that moment, had been enticed to her ruin by words of love which had been hallowed in her ears by vows of marriage. Those vows which had possessed so deadly an efficacy, were now to be simply broken! The cruelty to her would be damnable, devilish,--surely worthy of hell if any sin of man can be so called! And she, who could not divest herself of a certain pride taken in the austere morality of her own life, she who was now a widow anxious to devote her life solely to God, had persuaded the man to this sin, in order that her successor as Countess of Scroope might not be, in her opinion, unfitting for nobility! The young lord had promised her that he would be guilty of this sin, so damnable, so devilish, telling her as he did so, that as a consequence of his promise he must continue to live a life of wickedness! In the agony of her spirit she threw herself upon her knees and implored the Lord to pardon her and to guide her. But even while kneeling before the throne of heaven she could not drive the pride of birth out of her heart. That the young Earl might be saved from the damning sin and also from the polluting marriage;--that was the prayer she prayed. CHAPTER VIII. LOOSE ABOUT THE WORLD. The Countess was seen no more on that day,--was no more seen at least by either of the two brothers. Miss Mellerby was with her now and again, but on each occasion only for a few minutes, and reported that Lady Scroope was ill and could not appear at dinner. She would, however, see her nephew before he started on the following morning. Fred himself was much affected by the interview with his aunt. No doubt he had made a former promise to his uncle, similar to that which had now been exacted from him. No doubt he had himself resolved, after what he had thought to be mature consideration that he would not marry the girl, justifying to himself this decision by the deceit which he thought had been practised upon him in regard to Captain O'Hara. Nevertheless, he felt that by what had now occurred he was bound more strongly against the marriage than he had ever been bound before. His promise to his uncle might have been regarded as being obligatory only as long as his uncle lived. His own decision he would have been at liberty to change when he pleased to do so. But, though his aunt was almost nothing to him,--was not in very truth his aunt, but only the widow of his uncle, there had been a solemnity about the engagement as he had now made it with her, which he felt to be definitely binding. He must go to Ardkill prepared to tell them absolutely the truth. He would make any arrangement they pleased as to their future joint lives, so long as it was an arrangement by which Kate should not become Countess of Scroope. He did not attempt to conceal from himself the dreadful nature of the task before him. He knew what would be the indignation of the priest. He could picture to himself the ferocity of the mother, defending her young as a lioness would her whelp. He could imagine that that dagger might again be brought from its hiding place. And, worse than all, he would see the girl prostrate in her woe, and appealing to his love and to his oaths, when the truth as to her future life should be revealed to her. But yet he did not think of shunning the task before him. He could not endure to live a coward in his own esteem. He was unlike himself and very melancholy. "It has been so good of you to remain here," he said to Sophie Mellerby. They had now become intimate and almost attached to each other as friends. If she had allowed a spark of hope to become bright within her heart in regard to the young Earl that had long since been quenched. She had acknowledged to herself that had it been possible in other respects they would not have suited each other,--and now they were friends. "I love your aunt dearly and have been very glad to be with her." "I wish you would learn to love somebody else dearly." "Perhaps I shall, some day,--somebody else; though I don't at all know who it may be." "You know whom I mean." "I suppose I do." "And why not love him? Isn't he a good fellow?" "One can't love all the good fellows, Lord Scroope." "You'll never find a better one than he is." "Did he commission you to speak for him?" "You know he didn't. You know that he would be the last man in the world to do so?" "I was surprised." "But I had a reason for speaking." "No doubt." "I don't suppose it will have any effect with you;--but it is something you ought to know. If any man of my age can be supposed to have made up his mind on such a matter, you may believe that I have made up my mind that I will--never marry." "What nonsense, Lord Scroope." "Well;--yes; perhaps it is. But I am so convinced of it myself that I shall ask my brother to come and live here--permanently,--as master of the place. As he would have to leave his regiment it would of course be necessary that his position here should be settled,--and it shall be settled." "I most sincerely hope that you will always live here yourself." "It won't suit me. Circumstances have made it impossible. If he will not do so, nor my aunt, the house must be shut up. I am most anxious that this should not be done. I shall implore him to remain here, and to be here exactly as I should have been,--had things with me not have been so very unfortunate. He will at any rate have a house to offer you, if--" "Lord Scroope!" "I know what you are going to say, Sophie." "I don't know that I am as yet disposed to marry for the sake of a house to shelter me." "Of course you would say that; but still I think that I have been right to tell you. I am sure you will believe my assurance that Jack knows nothing of all this." That same evening he said nearly the same thing to his brother, though in doing so he made no special allusion to Sophie Mellerby. "I know that there is a great deal that a fellow should do, living in such a house as this, but I am not the man to do it. It's a very good kind of life, if you happen to be up to it. I am not, but you are." "My dear Fred, you can't change the accidents of birth." "In a great measure I can; or at least we can do so between us. You can't be Lord Scroope, but you can be master of Scroope Manor." "No I can't;--and, which is more, I won't. Don't think I am uncivil." "You are uncivil, Jack." "At any rate I am not ungrateful. I only want you to understand thoroughly that such an arrangement is out of the question. In no condition of life would I care to be the locum tenens for another man. You are now five or six and twenty. At thirty you may be a married man with an absolute need for your own house." "I would execute any deed." "So that I might be enabled to keep the owner of the property out of the only place that is fit for him! It is a power which I should not use, and do not wish to possess. Believe me, Fred, that a man is bound to submit himself to the circumstances by which he is surrounded, when it is clear that they are beneficial to the world at large. There must be an Earl of Scroope, and you at present are the man." They were sitting together out upon the terrace after dinner, and for a time there was silence. His brother's arguments were too strong for the young lord, and it was out of his power to deal with one so dogmatic. But he did not forget the last words that had been spoken. It may be that "I shall not be the man very long," he said at last. "Any of us may die to-day or to-morrow," said Jack. "I have a kind of presentiment,--not that I shall die, but that I shall never see Scroope again. It seems as though I were certainly leaving for ever a place that has always been distasteful to me." "I never believe anything of presentiments." "No; of course not. You're not that sort of fellow at all. But I am. I can't think of myself as living here with a dozen old fogies about the place all doing nothing, touching their hats, my-lording me at every turn, looking respectable, but as idle as pickpockets." "You'll have to do it." "Perhaps I shall, but I don't think it." Then there was again silence for a time. "The less said about it the better, but I know that I've got a very difficult job before me in Ireland." "I don't envy you, Fred;--not that." "It is no use talking about it. It has got to be done, and the sooner done the better. What I shall do when it is done, I have not the most remote idea. Where I shall be living this day month I cannot guess. I can only say one thing certainly, and that is that I shall not come back here. There never was a fellow so loose about the world as I am." It was terrible that a young man who had it in his power to do so much good or so much evil should have had nothing to bind him to the better course! There was the motto of his house, and the promises which he had made to his uncle persuading him to that which was respectable and as he thought dull; and opposed to those influences there was an unconquerable feeling on his own part that he was altogether unfitted for the kind of life that was expected of him. Joined to this there was the fact of that unfortunate connection in Ireland from which he knew that it would be base to fly, and which, as it seemed to him, made any attempt at respectability impossible to him. Early on the following morning, as he was preparing to start, his aunt again sent for him. She came out to him in the sitting-room adjoining her bedroom and there embraced him. Her eyes were red with weeping, and her face wan with care. "Fred," she said; "dear Fred." "Good-bye, aunt. The last word I have to say is that I implore you not to leave Scroope as long as you are comfortable here." "You will come back?" "I cannot say anything certain about that." She still had hold of him with both hands and was looking into his face with loving, frightened, wistful eyes. "I know," she said, "that you will be thinking of what passed between us yesterday." "Certainly I shall remember it." "I have been praying for you, Fred; and now I tell you to look to your Father which is in Heaven for guidance, and not to take it from any poor frail sinful human being. Ask Him to keep your feet steady in the path, and your heart pure, and your thoughts free from wickedness. Oh, Fred, keep your mind and body clear before Him, and if you will kneel to Him for protection, He will show you a way through all difficulties." It was thus that she intended to tell him that his promise to her, made on the previous day, was to count for nought, and that he was to marry the girl if by no other way he could release himself from vice. But she could not bring herself to declare to him in plain terms that he had better marry Kate O'Hara, and bring his new Countess to Scroope in order that she might be fitly received by her predecessor. It might be that the Lord would still show him a way out of the two evils. But his brother was more clear of purpose with him, as they walked together out to the yard in which the young Earl was to get into his carriage. "Upon the whole, Fred, if I were you I should marry that girl." This he said quite abruptly. The young lord shook his head. "It may be that I do not know all the circumstances. If they be as I have heard them from you, I should marry her. Good-bye. Let me hear from you, when you have settled as to going anywhere." "I shall be sure to write," said Fred as he took the reins and seated him in the phaeton. His brother's advice he understood plainly, and that of his aunt he thought that he understood. But he shook his head again as he told himself that he could not now be guided by either of them. CHAPTER IX. AT LISCANNOR. The young lord slept one night at Ennis, and on the third morning after his departure from Scroope, started in his gig for Liscannor and the cliffs of Moher. He took a servant with him and a change of clothes. And as he went his heart was very heavy. He could not live a coward in his own esteem. Were it not so how willingly would he have saved himself from the misery of this journey, and have sent to his Kate to bid her come to him in England! He feared the priest, and he feared his Kate's mother;--not her dagger, but her eyes and scorching words. He altogether doubted his own powers to perform satisfactorily the task before him. He knew men who could do it. His brother Jack would do it, were it possible that his brother Jack should be in such a position. But for himself, he was conscious of a softness of heart, a feminine tenderness, which,--to do him justice,--he did not mistake for sincerity, that rendered him unfit for the task before him. The farther he journeyed from Scroope and the nearer that he found himself to the cliffs the stronger did the feeling grow within him, till it had become almost

isaiah

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

women,--who in all other views of life are perhaps tender and soft-natured,--is one of the marvels of our social system. It is as though a certain line were drawn to include all women,--a line, but, alas, little more than a line,--by overstepping which, or rather by being known to have overstepped it, a woman ceases to be a woman in the estimation of her own sex. That the existence of this feeling has strong effect in saving women from passing the line, none of us can doubt. That its general tendency may be good rather than evil, is possible. But the hardness necessary to preserve the rule, a hardness which must be exclusively feminine but which is seldom wanting, is a marvellous feature in the female character. Lady Mary Quin probably thought but little on the subject. The women in the cottage on the cliff, who were befriended by Father Marty, were to her dangerous scheming Roman Catholic adventurers. The proper triumph of Protestant virtue required that they should fail in their adventures. She had always known that there would be something disreputable heard of them sooner or later. When the wretched Captain came into the neighbourhood,--and she soon heard of his coming,--she was gratified by feeling that her convictions had been correct. When the sad tidings as to poor Kate reached her ears, she had "known that it would be so." That such a girl should be made Countess of Scroope in reward for her wickedness would be to her an event horrible, almost contrary to Divine Providence,--a testimony that the Evil One was being allowed peculiar power at the moment, and would no doubt have been used in her own circles to show the ruin that had been brought upon the country by Catholic emancipation. She did not for a moment doubt that the present Earl should be encouraged to break any promises of marriage to the making of which he might have been allured. But it was not so with Lady Scroope. She, indeed, came to the same conclusion as her friend, but she did so with much difficulty and after many inward struggles. She understood and valued the customs of the magic line. In her heart of hearts she approved of a different code of morals for men and women. That which merited instant, and as regarded this world, perpetual condemnation in a woman, might in a man be very easily forgiven. A sigh, a shake of the head, and some small innocent stratagem that might lead to a happy marriage and settlement in life with increased income, would have been her treatment of such sin for the heirs of the great and wealthy. She knew that the world could not afford to ostracise the men,--though happily it might condemn the women. Nevertheless, when she came to the single separated instance, though her heart melted with no ruth for the woman,--in such cases the woman must be seen before the ruth is felt,--though pity for Kate O'Hara did not influence her, she did acknowledge the sanctity of a gentleman's word. If, as Lady Mary told her, and as she could so well believe, the present Earl of Scroope had given to this girl a promise that he would marry her, if he had bound himself by his pledged word, as a nobleman and a gentleman, how could she bid him become a perjured knave? Sans reproche! Was he thus to begin to live and to deserve the motto of his house by the conduct of his life? But then the evil that would be done was so great! She did not for a moment doubt all that Lady Mary told her about the girl. The worst of it had indeed been admitted. She was a Roman Catholic, ill-born, ill-connected, damaged utterly by a parent so low that nothing lower could possibly be raked out of the world's gutters. And now the girl herself was--a castaway. Such a marriage as that of which Lady Mary spoke would not only injure the house of Scroope for the present generation, but would tend to its final downfall. Would it not be known throughout all England that the next Earl of Scroope would be the grandson of a convict? Might there not be questions as to the legitimacy of the assumed heir? She herself knew of noble families which had been scattered, confounded, and almost ruined by such imprudence. Hitherto the family of Scroope had been continued from generation to generation without stain,--almost without stain. It had felt it to be a fortunate thing that the late heir had died because of the pollution of his wretched marriage. And now must evil as bad befall it, worse evil perhaps, through the folly of this young man? Must that proud motto be taken down from its place in the hall from very shame? But the evil had not been done yet, and it might be that her words could save the house from ruin and disgrace. She was a woman of whom it may be said that whatever difficulty she might have in deciding a question she could recognise the necessity of a decision and could abide by it when she had made it. It was with great difficulty that she could bring herself to think that an Earl of Scroope should be false to a promise by which he had seduced a woman, but she did succeed in bringing herself to such thought. Her very heart bled within her as she acknowledged the necessity. A lie to her was abominable. A lie, to be told by herself, would have been hideous to her. A lie to be told by him, was worse. As virtue, what she called virtue, was the one thing indispensable to women, so was truth the one thing indispensable to men. And yet she must tell him to lie, and having resolved so to tell him, must use all her intellect to defend the lie,--and to insist upon it. He was determined to return to Ireland, and there was nothing that she could do to prevent his return. She could not bid him shun a danger simply because it was a danger. He was his own master, and were she to do so he would only laugh at her. Of authority with him she had none. If she spoke, he must listen. Her position would secure so much to her from courtesy,--and were she to speak of the duty which he owed to his name and to the family he could hardly laugh. She therefore sent to him a message. Would he kindly go to her in her own room? Of course he attended to her wishes and went. "You mean to leave us to-morrow, Fred," she said. We all know the peculiar solemnity of a widow's dress,--the look of self-sacrifice on the part of the woman which the dress creates; and have perhaps recognised the fact that if the woman be deterred by no necessities of oeconomy in her toilet,--as in such material circumstances the splendour is more perfect if splendour be the object,--so also is the self-sacrifice more abject. And with this widow an appearance of melancholy solemnity, almost of woe, was natural to her. She was one whose life had ever been serious, solemn, and sad. Wealth and the outward pomp of circumstances had conferred upon her a certain dignity; and with that doubtless there had reached her some feeling of satisfaction. Religion too had given her comfort, and a routine of small duties had saved her from the wretchedness of ennui. But life with her had had no laughter, and had seldom smiled. Now in the first days of her widowhood she regarded her course as run, and looked upon herself as one who, in speaking, almost spoke from the tomb. All this had its effect upon the young lord. She did inspire him with a certain awe; and though her weeds gave her no authority, they did give her weight. "Yes; I shall start to-morrow," he replied. "And you still mean to go to Ireland?" "Yes;--I must go to Ireland. I shan't stay there, you know." Then she paused a moment before she proceeded. "Shall you see--that young woman when you are there?" "I suppose I shall see her." "Pray do not think that I desire to interfere with your private affairs. I know well that I have no right to assume over you any of that affectionate authority which a mother might have,--though in truth I love you as a son." "I would treat you just as I would my own mother." "No, Fred; that cannot be so. A mother would throw her arms round you and cling to you if she saw you going into danger. A mother would follow you, hoping that she might save you." "But there is no danger." "Ah, Fred, I fear there is." "What danger?" "You are now the head of one of the oldest and the noblest families in this which in my heart I believe to be the least sinful among the sinful nations of the wicked world." "I don't quite know how that may be;--I mean about the world. Of course I understand about the family." "But you love your country?" "Oh yes. I don't think there's any place like England,--to live in." "And England is what it is because there are still some left among us who are born to high rank and who know how to live up to the standard that is required of them. If ever there was such a man, your uncle was such a one." "I'm sure he was;--just what he ought to have been." "Honourable, true, affectionate, self-denying, affable to all men, but ever conscious of his rank, giving much because much had been given to him, asserting his nobility for the benefit of those around him, proud of his order for the sake of his country, bearing his sorrows with the dignity of silence, a nobleman all over, living on to the end sans reproche! He was a man whom you may dare to imitate, though to follow him may be difficult." She spoke not loudly, but clearly, looking him full in the face as she stood motionless before him. "He was all that," said Fred, almost overpowered by the sincere solemnity of his aunt's manner. "Will you try to walk in his footsteps?" "Two men can never be like one another in that way. I shall never be what he was. But I'll endeavour to get along as well as I can." "You will remember your order?" "Yes, I will. I do remember it. Mind you, aunt, I am not glad that I belong to it. I think I do understand about it all, and will do my best. But Jack would have made a better Earl than I shall do. That's the truth." "The Lord God has placed you,--and you must pray to Him that He will enable you to do your duty in that state of life to which it has pleased Him to call you. You are here and must bear his decree; and whether it be a privilege to enjoy, you must enjoy it, or a burden to bear, you must endure it." "It is so of course." "Knowing that, you must know also how incumbent it is upon you not to defile the stock from which you are sprung." "I suppose it has been defiled," said Fred, who had been looking into the history of the family. "The ninth Earl seems to have married nobody knows whom. And his son was my uncle's grandfather." This was a blow to Lady Scroope, but she bore it with dignity and courage. "You would hardly wish it to be said that you had copied the only one of your ancestors who did amiss. The world was rougher then than it is now, and he of whom you speak was a soldier." "I'm a soldier too," said the Earl. "Oh, Fred, is it thus you answer me! He was a soldier in rough times, when there were wars. I think he married when he was with the army under Marlborough." "I have not seen anything of that kind, certainly." "Your country is at peace, and your place is here, among your tenantry, at Scroope. You will promise me, Fred, that you will not marry this girl in Ireland?" "If I do, the fault will be all with that old maid at Castle Quin." "Do not say that, Fred. It is impossible. Let her conduct have been what it may, it cannot make that right in you which would have been wrong, or that wrong which would have been right." "She's a nasty meddlesome cat." "I will not talk about her. What good would it do? You cannot at any rate be surprised at my extreme anxiety. You did promise your uncle most solemnly that you would never marry this young lady." "If I did, that ought to be enough." He was now waxing angry and his face was becoming red. He would bear a good deal from his uncle's widow, but he felt his own power and was not prepared to bear much more. "Of course I cannot bind you. I know well how impotent I am,--how powerless to exercise control. But I think, Fred, that for your uncle's sake you will not refuse to repeat your promise to me, if you intend to keep it. Why is it that I am so anxious? It is for your sake, and for the sake of a name which should be dearer to you than it is even to me." "I have no intention of marrying at all." "Do not say that." "I do say it. I do not want to keep either you or Jack in the dark as to my future life. This young lady,--of whom, by the by, neither you nor Lady Mary Quin know anything, shall not become Countess of Scroope. To that I have made up my mind." "Thank God." "But as long as she lives I will make no woman Countess of Scroope. Let Jack marry this girl that he is in love with. They shall live here and have the house to themselves if they like it. He will look after the property and shall have whatever income old Mellerby thinks proper. I will keep the promise I made to my uncle,--but the keeping of it will make it impossible for me to live here. I would prefer now that you should say no more on the subject." Then he left her, quitting the room with some stateliness in his step, as though conscious that at such a moment as this it behoved him to assume his rank. The dowager sat alone all that morning thinking of the thing she had done. She did now believe that he was positively resolved not to marry Kate O'Hara, and she believed also that she herself had fixed him in that resolution. In doing so had she or had she not committed a deadly sin? She knew almost with accuracy what had occurred on the coast of Clare. A young girl, innocent herself up to that moment, had been enticed to her ruin by words of love which had been hallowed in her ears by vows of marriage. Those vows which had possessed so deadly an efficacy, were now to be simply broken! The cruelty to her would be damnable, devilish,--surely worthy of hell if any sin of man can be so called! And she, who could not divest herself of a certain pride taken in the austere morality of her own life, she who was now a widow anxious to devote her life solely to God, had persuaded the man to this sin, in order that her successor as Countess of Scroope might not be, in her opinion, unfitting for nobility! The young lord had promised her that he would be guilty of this sin, so damnable, so devilish, telling her as he did so, that as a consequence of his promise he must continue to live a life of wickedness! In the agony of her spirit she threw herself upon her knees and implored the Lord to pardon her and to guide her. But even while kneeling before the throne of heaven she could not drive the pride of birth out of her heart. That the young Earl might be saved from the damning sin and also from the polluting marriage;--that was the prayer she prayed. CHAPTER VIII. LOOSE ABOUT THE WORLD. The Countess was seen no more on that day,--was no more seen at least by either of the two brothers. Miss Mellerby was with her now and again, but on each occasion only for a few minutes, and reported that Lady Scroope was ill and could not appear at dinner. She would, however, see her nephew before he started on the following morning. Fred himself was much affected by the interview with his aunt. No doubt he had made a former promise to his uncle, similar to that which had now been exacted from him. No doubt he had himself resolved, after what he had thought to be mature consideration that he would not marry the girl, justifying to himself this decision by the deceit which he thought had been practised upon him in regard to Captain O'Hara. Nevertheless, he felt that by what had now occurred he was bound more strongly against the marriage than he had ever been bound before. His promise to his uncle might have been regarded as being obligatory only as long as his uncle lived. His own decision he would have been at liberty to change when he pleased to do so. But, though his aunt was almost nothing to him,--was not in very truth his aunt, but only the widow of his uncle, there had been a solemnity about the engagement as he had now made it with her, which he felt to be definitely binding. He must go to Ardkill prepared to tell them absolutely the truth. He would make any arrangement they pleased as to their future joint lives, so long as it was an arrangement by which Kate should not become Countess of Scroope. He did not attempt to conceal from himself the dreadful nature of the task before him. He knew what would be the indignation of the priest. He could picture to himself the ferocity of the mother, defending her young as a lioness would her whelp. He could imagine that that dagger might again be brought from its hiding place. And, worse than all, he would see the girl prostrate in her woe, and appealing to his love and to his oaths, when the truth as to her future life should be revealed to her. But yet he did not think of shunning the task before him. He could not endure to live a coward in his own esteem. He was unlike himself and very melancholy. "It has been so good of you to remain here," he said to Sophie Mellerby. They had now become intimate and almost attached to each other as friends. If she had allowed a spark of hope to become bright within her heart in regard to the young Earl that had long since been quenched. She had acknowledged to herself that had it been possible in other respects they would not have suited each other,--and now they were friends. "I love your aunt dearly and have been very glad to be with her." "I wish you would learn to love somebody else dearly." "Perhaps I shall, some day,--somebody else; though I don't at all know who it may be." "You know whom I mean." "I suppose I do." "And why not love him? Isn't he a good fellow?" "One can't love all the good fellows, Lord Scroope." "You'll never find a better one than he is." "Did he commission you to speak for him?" "You know he didn't. You know that he would be the last man in the world to do so?" "I was surprised." "But I had a reason for speaking." "No doubt." "I don't suppose it will have any effect with you;--but it is something you ought to know. If any man of my age can be supposed to have made up his mind on such a matter, you may believe that I have made up my mind that I will--never marry." "What nonsense, Lord Scroope." "Well;--yes; perhaps it is. But I am so convinced of it myself that I shall ask my brother to come and live here--permanently,--as master of the place. As he would have to leave his regiment it would of course be necessary that his position here should be settled,--and it shall be settled." "I most sincerely hope that you will always live here yourself." "It won't suit me. Circumstances have made it impossible. If he will not do so, nor my aunt, the house must be shut up. I am most anxious that this should not be done. I shall implore him to remain here, and to be here exactly as I should have been,--had things with me not have been so very unfortunate. He will at any rate have a house to offer you, if--" "Lord Scroope!" "I know what you are going to say, Sophie." "I don't know that I am as yet disposed to marry for the sake of a house to shelter me." "Of course you would say that; but still I think that I have been right to tell you. I am sure you will believe my assurance that Jack knows nothing of all this." That same evening he said nearly the same thing to his brother, though in doing so he made no special allusion to Sophie Mellerby. "I know that there is a great deal that a fellow should do, living in such a house as this, but I am not the man to do it. It's a very good kind of life, if you happen to be up to it. I am not, but you are." "My dear Fred, you can't change the accidents of birth." "In a great measure I can; or at least we can do so between us. You can't be Lord Scroope, but you can be master of Scroope Manor." "No I can't;--and, which is more, I won't. Don't think I am uncivil." "You are uncivil, Jack." "At any rate I am not ungrateful. I only want you to understand thoroughly that such an arrangement is out of the question. In no condition of life would I care to be the locum tenens for another man. You are now five or six and twenty. At thirty you may be a married man with an absolute need for your own house." "I would execute any deed." "So that I might be enabled to keep the owner of the property out of the only place that is fit for him! It is a power which I should not use, and do not wish to possess. Believe me, Fred, that a man is bound to submit himself to the circumstances by which he is surrounded, when it is clear that they are beneficial to the world at large. There must be an Earl of Scroope, and you at present are the man." They were sitting together out upon the terrace after dinner, and for a time there was silence. His brother's arguments were too strong for the young lord, and it was out of his power to deal with one so dogmatic. But he did not forget the last words that had been spoken. It may be that "I shall not be the man very long," he said at last. "Any of us may die to-day or to-morrow," said Jack. "I have a kind of presentiment,--not that I shall die, but that I shall never see Scroope again. It seems as though I were certainly leaving for ever a place that has always been distasteful to me." "I never believe anything of presentiments." "No; of course not. You're not that sort of fellow at all. But I am. I can't think of myself as living here with a dozen old fogies about the place all doing nothing, touching their hats, my-lording me at every turn, looking respectable, but as idle as pickpockets." "You'll have to do it." "Perhaps I shall, but I don't think it." Then there was again silence for a time. "The less said about it the better, but I know that I've got a very difficult job before me in Ireland." "I don't envy you, Fred;--not that." "It is no use talking about it. It has got to be done, and the sooner done the better. What I shall do when it is done, I have not the most remote idea. Where I shall be living this day month I cannot guess. I can only say one thing certainly, and that is that I shall not come back here. There never was a fellow so loose about the world as I am." It was terrible that a young man who had it in his power to do so much good or so much evil should have had nothing to bind him to the better course! There was the motto of his house, and the promises which he had made to his uncle persuading him to that which was respectable and as he thought dull; and opposed to those influences there was an unconquerable feeling on his own part that he was altogether unfitted for the kind of life that was expected of him. Joined to this there was the fact of that unfortunate connection in Ireland from which he knew that it would be base to fly, and which, as it seemed to him, made any attempt at respectability impossible to him. Early on the following morning, as he was preparing to start, his aunt again sent for him. She came out to him in the sitting-room adjoining her bedroom and there embraced him. Her eyes were red with weeping, and her face wan with care. "Fred," she said; "dear Fred." "Good-bye, aunt. The last word I have to say is that I implore you not to leave Scroope as long as you are comfortable here." "You will come back?" "I cannot say anything certain about that." She still had hold of him with both hands and was looking into his face with loving, frightened, wistful eyes. "I know," she said, "that you will be thinking of what passed between us yesterday." "Certainly I shall remember it." "I have been praying for you, Fred; and now I tell you to look to your Father which is in Heaven for guidance, and not to take it from any poor frail sinful human being. Ask Him to keep your feet steady in the path, and your heart pure, and your thoughts free from wickedness. Oh, Fred, keep your mind and body clear before Him, and if you will kneel to Him for protection, He will show you a way through all difficulties." It was thus that she intended to tell him that his promise to her, made on the previous day, was to count for nought, and that he was to marry the girl if by no other way he could release himself from vice. But she could not bring herself to declare to him in plain terms that he had better marry Kate O'Hara, and bring his new Countess to Scroope in order that she might be fitly received by her predecessor. It might be that the Lord would still show him a way out of the two evils. But his brother was more clear of purpose with him, as they walked together out to the yard in which the young Earl was to get into his carriage. "Upon the whole, Fred, if I were you I should marry that girl." This he said quite abruptly. The young lord shook his head. "It may be that I do not know all the circumstances. If they be as I have heard them from you, I should marry her. Good-bye. Let me hear from you, when you have settled as to going anywhere." "I shall be sure to write," said Fred as he took the reins and seated him in the phaeton. His brother's advice he understood plainly, and that of his aunt he thought that he understood. But he shook his head again as he told himself that he could not now be guided by either of them. CHAPTER IX. AT LISCANNOR. The young lord slept one night at Ennis, and on the third morning after his departure from Scroope, started in his gig for Liscannor and the cliffs of Moher. He took a servant with him and a change of clothes. And as he went his heart was very heavy. He could not live a coward in his own esteem. Were it not so how willingly would he have saved himself from the misery of this journey, and have sent to his Kate to bid her come to him in England! He feared the priest, and he feared his Kate's mother;--not her dagger, but her eyes and scorching words. He altogether doubted his own powers to perform satisfactorily the task before him. He knew men who could do it. His brother Jack would do it, were it possible that his brother Jack should be in such a position. But for himself, he was conscious of a softness of heart, a feminine tenderness, which,--to do him justice,--he did not mistake for sincerity, that rendered him unfit for the task before him. The farther he journeyed from Scroope and the nearer that he found himself to the cliffs the stronger did the feeling grow within him, till it had become almost

told

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women,--who in all other views of life are perhaps tender and soft-natured,--is one of the marvels of our social system. It is as though a certain line were drawn to include all women,--a line, but, alas, little more than a line,--by overstepping which, or rather by being known to have overstepped it, a woman ceases to be a woman in the estimation of her own sex. That the existence of this feeling has strong effect in saving women from passing the line, none of us can doubt. That its general tendency may be good rather than evil, is possible. But the hardness necessary to preserve the rule, a hardness which must be exclusively feminine but which is seldom wanting, is a marvellous feature in the female character. Lady Mary Quin probably thought but little on the subject. The women in the cottage on the cliff, who were befriended by Father Marty, were to her dangerous scheming Roman Catholic adventurers. The proper triumph of Protestant virtue required that they should fail in their adventures. She had always known that there would be something disreputable heard of them sooner or later. When the wretched Captain came into the neighbourhood,--and she soon heard of his coming,--she was gratified by feeling that her convictions had been correct. When the sad tidings as to poor Kate reached her ears, she had "known that it would be so." That such a girl should be made Countess of Scroope in reward for her wickedness would be to her an event horrible, almost contrary to Divine Providence,--a testimony that the Evil One was being allowed peculiar power at the moment, and would no doubt have been used in her own circles to show the ruin that had been brought upon the country by Catholic emancipation. She did not for a moment doubt that the present Earl should be encouraged to break any promises of marriage to the making of which he might have been allured. But it was not so with Lady Scroope. She, indeed, came to the same conclusion as her friend, but she did so with much difficulty and after many inward struggles. She understood and valued the customs of the magic line. In her heart of hearts she approved of a different code of morals for men and women. That which merited instant, and as regarded this world, perpetual condemnation in a woman, might in a man be very easily forgiven. A sigh, a shake of the head, and some small innocent stratagem that might lead to a happy marriage and settlement in life with increased income, would have been her treatment of such sin for the heirs of the great and wealthy. She knew that the world could not afford to ostracise the men,--though happily it might condemn the women. Nevertheless, when she came to the single separated instance, though her heart melted with no ruth for the woman,--in such cases the woman must be seen before the ruth is felt,--though pity for Kate O'Hara did not influence her, she did acknowledge the sanctity of a gentleman's word. If, as Lady Mary told her, and as she could so well believe, the present Earl of Scroope had given to this girl a promise that he would marry her, if he had bound himself by his pledged word, as a nobleman and a gentleman, how could she bid him become a perjured knave? Sans reproche! Was he thus to begin to live and to deserve the motto of his house by the conduct of his life? But then the evil that would be done was so great! She did not for a moment doubt all that Lady Mary told her about the girl. The worst of it had indeed been admitted. She was a Roman Catholic, ill-born, ill-connected, damaged utterly by a parent so low that nothing lower could possibly be raked out of the world's gutters. And now the girl herself was--a castaway. Such a marriage as that of which Lady Mary spoke would not only injure the house of Scroope for the present generation, but would tend to its final downfall. Would it not be known throughout all England that the next Earl of Scroope would be the grandson of a convict? Might there not be questions as to the legitimacy of the assumed heir? She herself knew of noble families which had been scattered, confounded, and almost ruined by such imprudence. Hitherto the family of Scroope had been continued from generation to generation without stain,--almost without stain. It had felt it to be a fortunate thing that the late heir had died because of the pollution of his wretched marriage. And now must evil as bad befall it, worse evil perhaps, through the folly of this young man? Must that proud motto be taken down from its place in the hall from very shame? But the evil had not been done yet, and it might be that her words could save the house from ruin and disgrace. She was a woman of whom it may be said that whatever difficulty she might have in deciding a question she could recognise the necessity of a decision and could abide by it when she had made it. It was with great difficulty that she could bring herself to think that an Earl of Scroope should be false to a promise by which he had seduced a woman, but she did succeed in bringing herself to such thought. Her very heart bled within her as she acknowledged the necessity. A lie to her was abominable. A lie, to be told by herself, would have been hideous to her. A lie to be told by him, was worse. As virtue, what she called virtue, was the one thing indispensable to women, so was truth the one thing indispensable to men. And yet she must tell him to lie, and having resolved so to tell him, must use all her intellect to defend the lie,--and to insist upon it. He was determined to return to Ireland, and there was nothing that she could do to prevent his return. She could not bid him shun a danger simply because it was a danger. He was his own master, and were she to do so he would only laugh at her. Of authority with him she had none. If she spoke, he must listen. Her position would secure so much to her from courtesy,--and were she to speak of the duty which he owed to his name and to the family he could hardly laugh. She therefore sent to him a message. Would he kindly go to her in her own room? Of course he attended to her wishes and went. "You mean to leave us to-morrow, Fred," she said. We all know the peculiar solemnity of a widow's dress,--the look of self-sacrifice on the part of the woman which the dress creates; and have perhaps recognised the fact that if the woman be deterred by no necessities of oeconomy in her toilet,--as in such material circumstances the splendour is more perfect if splendour be the object,--so also is the self-sacrifice more abject. And with this widow an appearance of melancholy solemnity, almost of woe, was natural to her. She was one whose life had ever been serious, solemn, and sad. Wealth and the outward pomp of circumstances had conferred upon her a certain dignity; and with that doubtless there had reached her some feeling of satisfaction. Religion too had given her comfort, and a routine of small duties had saved her from the wretchedness of ennui. But life with her had had no laughter, and had seldom smiled. Now in the first days of her widowhood she regarded her course as run, and looked upon herself as one who, in speaking, almost spoke from the tomb. All this had its effect upon the young lord. She did inspire him with a certain awe; and though her weeds gave her no authority, they did give her weight. "Yes; I shall start to-morrow," he replied. "And you still mean to go to Ireland?" "Yes;--I must go to Ireland. I shan't stay there, you know." Then she paused a moment before she proceeded. "Shall you see--that young woman when you are there?" "I suppose I shall see her." "Pray do not think that I desire to interfere with your private affairs. I know well that I have no right to assume over you any of that affectionate authority which a mother might have,--though in truth I love you as a son." "I would treat you just as I would my own mother." "No, Fred; that cannot be so. A mother would throw her arms round you and cling to you if she saw you going into danger. A mother would follow you, hoping that she might save you." "But there is no danger." "Ah, Fred, I fear there is." "What danger?" "You are now the head of one of the oldest and the noblest families in this which in my heart I believe to be the least sinful among the sinful nations of the wicked world." "I don't quite know how that may be;--I mean about the world. Of course I understand about the family." "But you love your country?" "Oh yes. I don't think there's any place like England,--to live in." "And England is what it is because there are still some left among us who are born to high rank and who know how to live up to the standard that is required of them. If ever there was such a man, your uncle was such a one." "I'm sure he was;--just what he ought to have been." "Honourable, true, affectionate, self-denying, affable to all men, but ever conscious of his rank, giving much because much had been given to him, asserting his nobility for the benefit of those around him, proud of his order for the sake of his country, bearing his sorrows with the dignity of silence, a nobleman all over, living on to the end sans reproche! He was a man whom you may dare to imitate, though to follow him may be difficult." She spoke not loudly, but clearly, looking him full in the face as she stood motionless before him. "He was all that," said Fred, almost overpowered by the sincere solemnity of his aunt's manner. "Will you try to walk in his footsteps?" "Two men can never be like one another in that way. I shall never be what he was. But I'll endeavour to get along as well as I can." "You will remember your order?" "Yes, I will. I do remember it. Mind you, aunt, I am not glad that I belong to it. I think I do understand about it all, and will do my best. But Jack would have made a better Earl than I shall do. That's the truth." "The Lord God has placed you,--and you must pray to Him that He will enable you to do your duty in that state of life to which it has pleased Him to call you. You are here and must bear his decree; and whether it be a privilege to enjoy, you must enjoy it, or a burden to bear, you must endure it." "It is so of course." "Knowing that, you must know also how incumbent it is upon you not to defile the stock from which you are sprung." "I suppose it has been defiled," said Fred, who had been looking into the history of the family. "The ninth Earl seems to have married nobody knows whom. And his son was my uncle's grandfather." This was a blow to Lady Scroope, but she bore it with dignity and courage. "You would hardly wish it to be said that you had copied the only one of your ancestors who did amiss. The world was rougher then than it is now, and he of whom you speak was a soldier." "I'm a soldier too," said the Earl. "Oh, Fred, is it thus you answer me! He was a soldier in rough times, when there were wars. I think he married when he was with the army under Marlborough." "I have not seen anything of that kind, certainly." "Your country is at peace, and your place is here, among your tenantry, at Scroope. You will promise me, Fred, that you will not marry this girl in Ireland?" "If I do, the fault will be all with that old maid at Castle Quin." "Do not say that, Fred. It is impossible. Let her conduct have been what it may, it cannot make that right in you which would have been wrong, or that wrong which would have been right." "She's a nasty meddlesome cat." "I will not talk about her. What good would it do? You cannot at any rate be surprised at my extreme anxiety. You did promise your uncle most solemnly that you would never marry this young lady." "If I did, that ought to be enough." He was now waxing angry and his face was becoming red. He would bear a good deal from his uncle's widow, but he felt his own power and was not prepared to bear much more. "Of course I cannot bind you. I know well how impotent I am,--how powerless to exercise control. But I think, Fred, that for your uncle's sake you will not refuse to repeat your promise to me, if you intend to keep it. Why is it that I am so anxious? It is for your sake, and for the sake of a name which should be dearer to you than it is even to me." "I have no intention of marrying at all." "Do not say that." "I do say it. I do not want to keep either you or Jack in the dark as to my future life. This young lady,--of whom, by the by, neither you nor Lady Mary Quin know anything, shall not become Countess of Scroope. To that I have made up my mind." "Thank God." "But as long as she lives I will make no woman Countess of Scroope. Let Jack marry this girl that he is in love with. They shall live here and have the house to themselves if they like it. He will look after the property and shall have whatever income old Mellerby thinks proper. I will keep the promise I made to my uncle,--but the keeping of it will make it impossible for me to live here. I would prefer now that you should say no more on the subject." Then he left her, quitting the room with some stateliness in his step, as though conscious that at such a moment as this it behoved him to assume his rank. The dowager sat alone all that morning thinking of the thing she had done. She did now believe that he was positively resolved not to marry Kate O'Hara, and she believed also that she herself had fixed him in that resolution. In doing so had she or had she not committed a deadly sin? She knew almost with accuracy what had occurred on the coast of Clare. A young girl, innocent herself up to that moment, had been enticed to her ruin by words of love which had been hallowed in her ears by vows of marriage. Those vows which had possessed so deadly an efficacy, were now to be simply broken! The cruelty to her would be damnable, devilish,--surely worthy of hell if any sin of man can be so called! And she, who could not divest herself of a certain pride taken in the austere morality of her own life, she who was now a widow anxious to devote her life solely to God, had persuaded the man to this sin, in order that her successor as Countess of Scroope might not be, in her opinion, unfitting for nobility! The young lord had promised her that he would be guilty of this sin, so damnable, so devilish, telling her as he did so, that as a consequence of his promise he must continue to live a life of wickedness! In the agony of her spirit she threw herself upon her knees and implored the Lord to pardon her and to guide her. But even while kneeling before the throne of heaven she could not drive the pride of birth out of her heart. That the young Earl might be saved from the damning sin and also from the polluting marriage;--that was the prayer she prayed. CHAPTER VIII. LOOSE ABOUT THE WORLD. The Countess was seen no more on that day,--was no more seen at least by either of the two brothers. Miss Mellerby was with her now and again, but on each occasion only for a few minutes, and reported that Lady Scroope was ill and could not appear at dinner. She would, however, see her nephew before he started on the following morning. Fred himself was much affected by the interview with his aunt. No doubt he had made a former promise to his uncle, similar to that which had now been exacted from him. No doubt he had himself resolved, after what he had thought to be mature consideration that he would not marry the girl, justifying to himself this decision by the deceit which he thought had been practised upon him in regard to Captain O'Hara. Nevertheless, he felt that by what had now occurred he was bound more strongly against the marriage than he had ever been bound before. His promise to his uncle might have been regarded as being obligatory only as long as his uncle lived. His own decision he would have been at liberty to change when he pleased to do so. But, though his aunt was almost nothing to him,--was not in very truth his aunt, but only the widow of his uncle, there had been a solemnity about the engagement as he had now made it with her, which he felt to be definitely binding. He must go to Ardkill prepared to tell them absolutely the truth. He would make any arrangement they pleased as to their future joint lives, so long as it was an arrangement by which Kate should not become Countess of Scroope. He did not attempt to conceal from himself the dreadful nature of the task before him. He knew what would be the indignation of the priest. He could picture to himself the ferocity of the mother, defending her young as a lioness would her whelp. He could imagine that that dagger might again be brought from its hiding place. And, worse than all, he would see the girl prostrate in her woe, and appealing to his love and to his oaths, when the truth as to her future life should be revealed to her. But yet he did not think of shunning the task before him. He could not endure to live a coward in his own esteem. He was unlike himself and very melancholy. "It has been so good of you to remain here," he said to Sophie Mellerby. They had now become intimate and almost attached to each other as friends. If she had allowed a spark of hope to become bright within her heart in regard to the young Earl that had long since been quenched. She had acknowledged to herself that had it been possible in other respects they would not have suited each other,--and now they were friends. "I love your aunt dearly and have been very glad to be with her." "I wish you would learn to love somebody else dearly." "Perhaps I shall, some day,--somebody else; though I don't at all know who it may be." "You know whom I mean." "I suppose I do." "And why not love him? Isn't he a good fellow?" "One can't love all the good fellows, Lord Scroope." "You'll never find a better one than he is." "Did he commission you to speak for him?" "You know he didn't. You know that he would be the last man in the world to do so?" "I was surprised." "But I had a reason for speaking." "No doubt." "I don't suppose it will have any effect with you;--but it is something you ought to know. If any man of my age can be supposed to have made up his mind on such a matter, you may believe that I have made up my mind that I will--never marry." "What nonsense, Lord Scroope." "Well;--yes; perhaps it is. But I am so convinced of it myself that I shall ask my brother to come and live here--permanently,--as master of the place. As he would have to leave his regiment it would of course be necessary that his position here should be settled,--and it shall be settled." "I most sincerely hope that you will always live here yourself." "It won't suit me. Circumstances have made it impossible. If he will not do so, nor my aunt, the house must be shut up. I am most anxious that this should not be done. I shall implore him to remain here, and to be here exactly as I should have been,--had things with me not have been so very unfortunate. He will at any rate have a house to offer you, if--" "Lord Scroope!" "I know what you are going to say, Sophie." "I don't know that I am as yet disposed to marry for the sake of a house to shelter me." "Of course you would say that; but still I think that I have been right to tell you. I am sure you will believe my assurance that Jack knows nothing of all this." That same evening he said nearly the same thing to his brother, though in doing so he made no special allusion to Sophie Mellerby. "I know that there is a great deal that a fellow should do, living in such a house as this, but I am not the man to do it. It's a very good kind of life, if you happen to be up to it. I am not, but you are." "My dear Fred, you can't change the accidents of birth." "In a great measure I can; or at least we can do so between us. You can't be Lord Scroope, but you can be master of Scroope Manor." "No I can't;--and, which is more, I won't. Don't think I am uncivil." "You are uncivil, Jack." "At any rate I am not ungrateful. I only want you to understand thoroughly that such an arrangement is out of the question. In no condition of life would I care to be the locum tenens for another man. You are now five or six and twenty. At thirty you may be a married man with an absolute need for your own house." "I would execute any deed." "So that I might be enabled to keep the owner of the property out of the only place that is fit for him! It is a power which I should not use, and do not wish to possess. Believe me, Fred, that a man is bound to submit himself to the circumstances by which he is surrounded, when it is clear that they are beneficial to the world at large. There must be an Earl of Scroope, and you at present are the man." They were sitting together out upon the terrace after dinner, and for a time there was silence. His brother's arguments were too strong for the young lord, and it was out of his power to deal with one so dogmatic. But he did not forget the last words that had been spoken. It may be that "I shall not be the man very long," he said at last. "Any of us may die to-day or to-morrow," said Jack. "I have a kind of presentiment,--not that I shall die, but that I shall never see Scroope again. It seems as though I were certainly leaving for ever a place that has always been distasteful to me." "I never believe anything of presentiments." "No; of course not. You're not that sort of fellow at all. But I am. I can't think of myself as living here with a dozen old fogies about the place all doing nothing, touching their hats, my-lording me at every turn, looking respectable, but as idle as pickpockets." "You'll have to do it." "Perhaps I shall, but I don't think it." Then there was again silence for a time. "The less said about it the better, but I know that I've got a very difficult job before me in Ireland." "I don't envy you, Fred;--not that." "It is no use talking about it. It has got to be done, and the sooner done the better. What I shall do when it is done, I have not the most remote idea. Where I shall be living this day month I cannot guess. I can only say one thing certainly, and that is that I shall not come back here. There never was a fellow so loose about the world as I am." It was terrible that a young man who had it in his power to do so much good or so much evil should have had nothing to bind him to the better course! There was the motto of his house, and the promises which he had made to his uncle persuading him to that which was respectable and as he thought dull; and opposed to those influences there was an unconquerable feeling on his own part that he was altogether unfitted for the kind of life that was expected of him. Joined to this there was the fact of that unfortunate connection in Ireland from which he knew that it would be base to fly, and which, as it seemed to him, made any attempt at respectability impossible to him. Early on the following morning, as he was preparing to start, his aunt again sent for him. She came out to him in the sitting-room adjoining her bedroom and there embraced him. Her eyes were red with weeping, and her face wan with care. "Fred," she said; "dear Fred." "Good-bye, aunt. The last word I have to say is that I implore you not to leave Scroope as long as you are comfortable here." "You will come back?" "I cannot say anything certain about that." She still had hold of him with both hands and was looking into his face with loving, frightened, wistful eyes. "I know," she said, "that you will be thinking of what passed between us yesterday." "Certainly I shall remember it." "I have been praying for you, Fred; and now I tell you to look to your Father which is in Heaven for guidance, and not to take it from any poor frail sinful human being. Ask Him to keep your feet steady in the path, and your heart pure, and your thoughts free from wickedness. Oh, Fred, keep your mind and body clear before Him, and if you will kneel to Him for protection, He will show you a way through all difficulties." It was thus that she intended to tell him that his promise to her, made on the previous day, was to count for nought, and that he was to marry the girl if by no other way he could release himself from vice. But she could not bring herself to declare to him in plain terms that he had better marry Kate O'Hara, and bring his new Countess to Scroope in order that she might be fitly received by her predecessor. It might be that the Lord would still show him a way out of the two evils. But his brother was more clear of purpose with him, as they walked together out to the yard in which the young Earl was to get into his carriage. "Upon the whole, Fred, if I were you I should marry that girl." This he said quite abruptly. The young lord shook his head. "It may be that I do not know all the circumstances. If they be as I have heard them from you, I should marry her. Good-bye. Let me hear from you, when you have settled as to going anywhere." "I shall be sure to write," said Fred as he took the reins and seated him in the phaeton. His brother's advice he understood plainly, and that of his aunt he thought that he understood. But he shook his head again as he told himself that he could not now be guided by either of them. CHAPTER IX. AT LISCANNOR. The young lord slept one night at Ennis, and on the third morning after his departure from Scroope, started in his gig for Liscannor and the cliffs of Moher. He took a servant with him and a change of clothes. And as he went his heart was very heavy. He could not live a coward in his own esteem. Were it not so how willingly would he have saved himself from the misery of this journey, and have sent to his Kate to bid her come to him in England! He feared the priest, and he feared his Kate's mother;--not her dagger, but her eyes and scorching words. He altogether doubted his own powers to perform satisfactorily the task before him. He knew men who could do it. His brother Jack would do it, were it possible that his brother Jack should be in such a position. But for himself, he was conscious of a softness of heart, a feminine tenderness, which,--to do him justice,--he did not mistake for sincerity, that rendered him unfit for the task before him. The farther he journeyed from Scroope and the nearer that he found himself to the cliffs the stronger did the feeling grow within him, till it had become almost

its

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word-- "Please do not think me excessively abrupt; but I advise you to alter those plans, or if it is too late for that, to follow your agent with all the support you can get for him. Comrade Syme and I have had an experience which it would take more time to recount than we can afford, if we are to act on it. I will, however, relate the occurrence in detail, even at the risk of losing time, if you really feel that it is essential to the understanding of the problem we have to discuss." He was spinning out his sentences, making them intolerably long and lingering, in the hope of maddening the practical little Doctor into an explosion of impatience which might show his hand. But the little Doctor continued only to stare and smile, and the monologue was uphill work. Syme began to feel a new sickness and despair. The Doctor's smile and silence were not at all like the cataleptic stare and horrible silence which he had confronted in the Professor half an hour before. About the Professor's makeup and all his antics there was always something merely grotesque, like a gollywog. Syme remembered those wild woes of yesterday as one remembers being afraid of Bogy in childhood. But here was daylight; here was a healthy, square-shouldered man in tweeds, not odd save for the accident of his ugly spectacles, not glaring or grinning at all, but smiling steadily and not saying a word. The whole had a sense of unbearable reality. Under the increasing sunlight the colours of the Doctor's complexion, the pattern of his tweeds, grew and expanded outrageously, as such things grow too important in a realistic novel. But his smile was quite slight, the pose of his head polite; the only uncanny thing was his silence. "As I say," resumed the Professor, like a man toiling through heavy sand, "the incident that has occurred to us and has led us to ask for information about the Marquis, is one which you may think it better to have narrated; but as it came in the way of Comrade Syme rather than me--" His words he seemed to be dragging out like words in an anthem; but Syme, who was watching, saw his long fingers rattle quickly on the edge of the crazy table. He read the message, "You must go on. This devil has sucked me dry!" Syme plunged into the breach with that bravado of improvisation which always came to him when he was alarmed. "Yes, the thing really happened to me," he said hastily. "I had the good fortune to fall into conversation with a detective who took me, thanks to my hat, for a respectable person. Wishing to clinch my reputation for respectability, I took him and made him very drunk at the Savoy. Under this influence he became friendly, and told me in so many words that within a day or two they hope to arrest the Marquis in France. "So unless you or I can get on his track--" The Doctor was still smiling in the most friendly way, and his protected eyes were still impenetrable. The Professor signalled to Syme that he would resume his explanation, and he began again with the same elaborate calm. "Syme immediately brought this information to me, and we came here together to see what use you would be inclined to make of it. It seems to me unquestionably urgent that--" All this time Syme had been staring at the Doctor almost as steadily as the Doctor stared at the Professor, but quite without the smile. The nerves of both comrades-in-arms were near snapping under that strain of motionless amiability, when Syme suddenly leant forward and idly tapped the edge of the table. His message to his ally ran, "I have an intuition." The Professor, with scarcely a pause in his monologue, signalled back, "Then sit on it." Syme telegraphed, "It is quite extraordinary." The other answered, "Extraordinary rot!" Syme said, "I am a poet." The other retorted, "You are a dead man." Syme had gone quite red up to his yellow hair, and his eyes were burning feverishly. As he said he had an intuition, and it had risen to a sort of lightheaded certainty. Resuming his symbolic taps, he signalled to his friend, "You scarcely realise how poetic my intuition is. It has that sudden quality we sometimes feel in the coming of spring." He then studied the answer on his friend's fingers. The answer was, "Go to hell!" The Professor then resumed his merely verbal monologue addressed to the Doctor. "Perhaps I should rather say," said Syme on his fingers, "that it resembles that sudden smell of the sea which may be found in the heart of lush woods." His companion disdained to reply. "Or yet again," tapped Syme, "it is positive, as is the passionate red hair of a beautiful woman." The Professor was continuing his speech, but in the middle of it Syme decided to act. He leant across the table, and said in a voice that could not be neglected-- "Dr. Bull!" The Doctor's sleek and smiling head did not move, but they could have sworn that under his dark glasses his eyes darted towards Syme. "Dr. Bull," said Syme, in a voice peculiarly precise and courteous, "would you do me a small favour? Would you be so kind as to take off your spectacles?" The Professor swung round on his seat, and stared at Syme with a sort of frozen fury of astonishment. Syme, like a man who has thrown his life and fortune on the table, leaned forward with a fiery face. The Doctor did not move. For a few seconds there was a silence in which one could hear a pin drop, split once by the single hoot of a distant steamer on the Thames. Then Dr. Bull rose slowly, still smiling, and took off his spectacles. Syme sprang to his feet, stepping backwards a little, like a chemical lecturer from a successful explosion. His eyes were like stars, and for an instant he could only point without speaking. The Professor had also started to his feet, forgetful of his supposed paralysis. He leant on the back of the chair and stared doubtfully at Dr. Bull, as if the Doctor had been turned into a toad before his eyes. And indeed it was almost as great a transformation scene. The two detectives saw sitting in the chair before them a very boyish-looking young man, with very frank and happy hazel eyes, an open expression, cockney clothes like those of a city clerk, and an unquestionable breath about him of being very good and rather commonplace. The smile was still there, but it might have been the first smile of a baby. "I knew I was a poet," cried Syme in a sort of ecstasy. "I knew my intuition was as infallible as the Pope. It was the spectacles that did it! It was all the spectacles. Given those beastly black eyes, and all the rest of him his health and his jolly looks, made him a live devil among dead ones." "It certainly does make a queer difference," said the Professor shakily. "But as regards the project of Dr. Bull--" "Project be damned!" roared Syme, beside himself. "Look at him! Look at his face, look at his collar, look at his blessed boots! You don't suppose, do you, that that thing's an anarchist?" "Syme!" cried the other in an apprehensive agony. "Why, by God," said Syme, "I'll take the risk of that myself! Dr. Bull, I am a police officer. There's my card," and he flung down the blue card upon the table. The Professor still feared that all was lost; but he was loyal. He pulled out his own official card and put it beside his friend's. Then the third man burst out laughing, and for the first time that morning they heard his voice. "I'm awfully glad you chaps have come so early," he said, with a sort of schoolboy flippancy, "for we can all start for France together. Yes, I'm in the force right enough," and he flicked a blue card towards them lightly as a matter of form. Clapping a brisk bowler on his head and resuming his goblin glasses, the Doctor moved so quickly towards the door, that the others instinctively followed him. Syme seemed a little distrait, and as he passed under the doorway he suddenly struck his stick on the stone passage so that it rang. "But Lord God Almighty," he cried out, "if this is all right, there were more damned detectives than there were damned dynamiters at the damned Council!" "We might have fought easily," said Bull; "we were four against three." The Professor was descending the stairs, but his voice came up from below. "No," said the voice, "we were not four against three--we were not so lucky. We were four against One." The others went down the stairs in silence. The young man called Bull, with an innocent courtesy characteristic of him, insisted on going last until they reached the street; but there his own robust rapidity asserted itself unconsciously, and he walked quickly on ahead towards a railway inquiry office, talking to the others over his shoulder. "It is jolly to get some pals," he said. "I've been half dead with the jumps, being quite alone. I nearly flung my arms round Gogol and embraced him, which would have been imprudent. I hope you won't despise me for having been in a blue funk." "All the blue devils in blue hell," said Syme, "contributed to my blue funk! But the worst devil was you and your infernal goggles." The young man laughed delightedly. "Wasn't it a rag?" he said. "Such a simple idea--not my own. I haven't got the brains. You see, I wanted to go into the detective service, especially the anti-dynamite business. But for that purpose they wanted someone to dress up as a dynamiter; and they all swore by blazes that I could never look like a dynamiter. They said my very walk was respectable, and that seen from behind I looked like the British Constitution. They said I looked too healthy and too optimistic, and too reliable and benevolent; they called me all sorts of names at Scotland Yard. They said that if I had been a criminal, I might have made my fortune by looking so like an honest man; but as I had the misfortune to be an honest man, there was not even the remotest chance of my assisting them by ever looking like a criminal. But at last I was brought before some old josser who was high up in the force, and who seemed to have no end of a head on his shoulders. And there the others all talked hopelessly. One asked whether a bushy beard would hide my nice smile; another said that if they blacked my face I might look like a negro anarchist; but this old chap chipped in with a most extraordinary remark. 'A pair of smoked spectacles will do it,' he said positively. 'Look at him now; he looks like an angelic office boy. Put him on a pair of smoked spectacles, and children will scream at the sight of him.' And so it was, by George! When once my eyes were covered, all the rest, smile and big shoulders and short hair, made me look a perfect little devil. As I say, it was simple enough when it was done, like miracles; but that wasn't the really miraculous part of it. There was one really staggering thing about the business, and my head still turns at it." "What was that?" asked Syme. "I'll tell you," answered the man in spectacles. "This big pot in the police who sized me up so that he knew how the goggles would go with my hair and socks--by God, he never saw me at all!" Syme's eyes suddenly flashed on him. "How was that?" he asked. "I thought you talked to him." "So I did," said Bull brightly; "but we talked in a pitch-dark room like a coalcellar. There, you would never have guessed that." "I could not have conceived it," said Syme gravely. "It is indeed a new idea," said the Professor. Their new ally was in practical matters a whirlwind. At the inquiry office he asked with businesslike brevity about the trains for Dover. Having got his information, he bundled the company into a cab, and put them and himself inside a railway carriage before they had properly realised the breathless process. They were already on the Calais boat before conversation flowed freely. "I had already arranged," he explained, "to go to France for my lunch; but I am delighted to have someone to lunch with me. You see, I had to send that beast, the Marquis, over with his bomb, because the President had his eye on me, though God knows how. I'll tell you the story some day. It was perfectly choking. Whenever I tried to slip out of it I saw the President somewhere, smiling out of the bow-window of a club, or taking off his hat to me from the top of an omnibus. I tell you, you can say what you like, that fellow sold himself to the devil; he can be in six places at once." "So you sent the Marquis off, I understand," asked the Professor. "Was it long ago? Shall we be in time to catch him?" "Yes," answered the new guide, "I've timed it all. He'll still be at Calais when we arrive." "But when we do catch him at Calais," said the Professor, "what are we going to do?" At this question the countenance of Dr. Bull fell for the first time. He reflected a little, and then said-- "Theoretically, I suppose, we ought to call the police." "Not I," said Syme. "Theoretically I ought to drown myself first. I promised a poor fellow, who was a real modern pessimist, on my word of honour not to tell the police. I'm no hand at casuistry, but I can't break my word to a modern pessimist. It's like breaking one's word to a child." "I'm in the same boat," said the Professor. "I tried to tell the police and I couldn't, because of some silly oath I took. You see, when I was an actor I was a sort of all-round beast. Perjury or treason is the only crime I haven't committed. If I did that I shouldn't know the difference between right and wrong." "I've been through all that," said Dr. Bull, "and I've made up my mind. I gave my promise to the Secretary--you know him, man who smiles upside down. My friends, that man is the most utterly unhappy man that was ever human. It may be his digestion, or his conscience, or his nerves, or his philosophy of the universe, but he's damned, he's in hell! Well, I can't turn on a man like that, and hunt him down. It's like whipping a leper. I may be mad, but that's how I feel; and there's jolly well the end of it." "I don't think you're mad," said Syme. "I knew you would decide like that when first you--" "Eh?" said Dr. Bull. "When first you took off your spectacles." Dr. Bull smiled a little, and strolled across the deck to look at the sunlit sea. Then he strolled back again, kicking his heels carelessly, and a companionable silence fell between the three men. "Well," said Syme, "it seems that we have all the same kind of morality or immorality, so we had better face the fact that comes of it." "Yes," assented the Professor, "you're quite right; and we must hurry up, for I can see the Grey Nose standing out from France." "The fact that comes of it," said Syme seriously, "is this, that we three are alone on this planet. Gogol has gone, God knows where; perhaps the President has smashed him like a fly. On the Council we are three men against three, like the Romans who held the bridge. But we are worse off than that, first because they can appeal to their organization and we cannot appeal to ours, and second because--" "Because one of those other three men," said the Professor, "is not a man." Syme nodded and was silent for a second or two, then he said-- "My idea is this. We must do something to keep the Marquis in Calais till tomorrow midday. I have turned over twenty schemes in my head. We cannot denounce him as a dynamiter; that is agreed. We cannot get him detained on some trivial charge, for we should have to appear; he knows us, and he would smell a rat. We cannot pretend to keep him on anarchist business; he might swallow much in that way, but not the notion of stopping in Calais while the Czar went safely through Paris. We might try to kidnap him, and lock him up ourselves; but he is a well-known man here. He has a whole bodyguard of friends; he is very strong and brave, and the event is doubtful. The only thing I can see to do is actually to take advantage of the very things that are in the Marquis's favour. I am going to profit by the fact that he is a highly respected nobleman. I am going to profit by the fact that he has many friends and moves in the best society." "What the devil are you talking about?" asked the Professor. "The Symes are first mentioned in the fourteenth century," said Syme; "but there is a tradition that one of them rode behind Bruce at Bannockburn. Since 1350 the tree is quite clear." "He's gone off his head," said the little Doctor, staring. "Our bearings," continued Syme calmly, "are 'argent a chevron gules charged with three cross crosslets of the field.' The motto varies." The Professor seized Syme roughly by the waistcoat. "We are just inshore," he said. "Are you seasick or joking in the wrong place?" "My remarks are almost painfully practical," answered Syme, in an unhurried manner. "The house of St. Eustache also is very ancient. The Marquis cannot deny that he is a gentleman. He cannot deny that I am a gentleman. And in order to put the matter of my social position quite beyond a doubt, I propose at the earliest opportunity to knock his hat off. But here we are in the harbour." They went on shore under the strong sun in a sort of daze. Syme, who had now taken the lead as Bull had taken it in London, led them along a kind of marine parade until he came to some cafes, embowered in a bulk of greenery and overlooking the sea. As he went before them his step was slightly swaggering, and he swung his stick like a sword. He was making apparently for the extreme end of the line of cafes, but he stopped abruptly. With a sharp gesture he motioned them to silence, but he pointed with one gloved finger to a cafe table under a bank of flowering foliage at which sat the Marquis de St. Eustache, his teeth shining in his thick, black beard, and his bold, brown face shadowed by a light yellow straw hat and outlined against the violet sea. CHAPTER X. THE DUEL SYME sat down at a cafe table with his companions, his blue eyes sparkling like the bright sea below, and ordered a bottle of Saumur with a pleased impatience. He was for some reason in a condition of curious hilarity. His spirits were already unnaturally high; they rose as the Saumur sank, and in half an hour his talk was a torrent of nonsense. He professed to be making out a plan of the conversation which was going to ensue between himself and the deadly Marquis. He jotted it down wildly with a pencil. It was arranged like a printed catechism, with questions and answers, and was delivered with an extraordinary rapidity of utterance. "I shall approach. Before taking off his hat, I shall take off my own. I shall say, 'The Marquis de Saint Eustache, I believe.' He will say, 'The celebrated Mr. Syme, I presume.' He will say in the most exquisite French, 'How are you?' I shall reply in the most exquisite Cockney, 'Oh, just the Syme--'" "Oh, shut it," said the man in spectacles. "Pull yourself together, and chuck away that bit of paper. What are you really going to do?" "But it was a lovely catechism," said Syme pathetically. "Do let me read it you. It has only forty-three questions and answers, and some of the Marquis's answers are wonderfully witty. I like to be just to my enemy." "But what's the good of it all?" asked Dr. Bull in exasperation. "It leads up to my challenge, don't you see," said Syme, beaming. "When the Marquis has given the thirty-ninth reply, which runs--" "Has it by any chance occurred to you," asked the Professor, with a ponderous simplicity, "that the Marquis may not say all the forty-three things you have put down for him? In that case, I understand, your own epigrams may appear somewhat more forced." Syme struck the table with a radiant face. "Why, how true that is," he said, "and I never thought of it. Sir, you have an intellect beyond the common. You will make a name." "Oh, you're as drunk as an owl!" said the Doctor. "It only remains," continued Syme quite unperturbed, "to adopt some other method of breaking the ice (if I may so express it) between myself and the man I wish to kill. And since the course of a dialogue cannot be predicted by one of its parties alone (as you have pointed out with such recondite acumen), the only thing to be done, I suppose, is for the one party, as far as possible, to do all the dialogue by himself. And so I will, by George!" And he stood up suddenly, his yellow hair blowing in the slight sea breeze. A band was playing in a cafe chantant hidden somewhere among the trees, and a woman had just stopped singing. On Syme's heated head the bray of the brass band seemed like the jar and jingle of that barrel-organ in Leicester Square, to the tune of which he had once stood up to die. He looked across to the little table where the Marquis sat. The man had two companions now, solemn Frenchmen in frock-coats and silk hats, one of them with the red rosette of the Legion of Honour, evidently people of a solid social position. Besides these black, cylindrical costumes, the Marquis, in his loose straw hat and light spring clothes, looked Bohemian and even barbaric; but he looked the Marquis. Indeed, one might say that he looked the king, with his animal elegance, his scornful eyes, and his proud head lifted against the purple sea. But he was no Christian king, at any rate; he was, rather, some swarthy despot, half Greek, half Asiatic, who in the days when slavery seemed natural looked down on the Mediterranean, on his galley and his groaning slaves. Just so, Syme thought, would the brown-gold face of such a tyrant have shown against the dark green olives and the burning blue. "Are you going to address the meeting?" asked the Professor peevishly, seeing that Syme still stood up without moving. Syme drained his last glass of sparkling wine. "I am," he said, pointing across to the Marquis and his companions, "that meeting. That meeting displeases me. I am going to pull that meeting's great ugly, mahogany-coloured nose." He stepped across swiftly, if not quite steadily. The Marquis, seeing him, arched his black Assyrian eyebrows in surprise, but smiled politely. "You are Mr. Syme, I think," he said. Syme bowed. "And you are the Marquis de Saint Eustache," he said gracefully. "Permit me to pull your nose." He leant over to do so, but the Marquis started backwards, upsetting his chair, and the two men in top hats held Syme back by the shoulders. "This man has insulted me!" said Syme, with gestures of explanation. "Insulted you?" cried the gentleman with the red rosette, "when?" "Oh, just now," said Syme recklessly. "He insulted my mother." "Insulted your mother!" exclaimed the gentleman incredulously. "Well, anyhow," said Syme, conceding a point, "my aunt." "But how can the Marquis have insulted your aunt just now?" said the second gentleman with some legitimate wonder. "He has been sitting here all the time." "Ah, it was what he said!" said Syme darkly. "I said nothing at all," said the Marquis, "except something about the band. I only said that I liked Wagner played well." "It was an allusion to my family," said Syme firmly. "My aunt played Wagner badly. It was a painful subject. We are always being insulted about it." "This seems most extraordinary," said the gentleman who was decore, looking doubtfully at the Marquis. "Oh, I assure you," said Syme earnestly, "the whole of your conversation was simply packed with sinister allusions to my aunt's weaknesses." "This is nonsense!" said the second gentleman. "I for one have said nothing for half an hour except that I liked the singing of that girl with black hair." "Well, there you are again!" said Syme indignantly. "My aunt's was red." "It seems to me," said the other, "that you are simply seeking a pretext to insult the Marquis." "By George!" said Syme, facing round and looking at him, "what a clever chap you are!" The Marquis started up with eyes flaming like a tiger's. "Seeking a quarrel with me!" he cried. "Seeking a fight with me! By God! there was never a man who had to seek long. These gentlemen will perhaps act for me. There are still four hours of daylight. Let us fight this evening." Syme bowed with a quite beautiful graciousness. "Marquis," he said, "your action is worthy of your fame and blood. Permit me to consult for a moment with the gentlemen in whose hands I shall place myself." In three long strides he rejoined his companions, and they, who had seen his champagne-inspired attack and listened to his idiotic explanations, were quite startled at the look of him. For now that he came back to them he was quite sober, a little pale, and he spoke in a low voice of passionate practicality. "I have done it," he said hoarsely. "I have fixed a fight on the beast. But look here, and listen carefully. There is no time for talk. You are my seconds, and everything must come from you. Now you must insist, and insist absolutely, on the duel coming off after seven tomorrow, so as to give me the chance of preventing him from catching the 7.45 for Paris. If he misses that he misses his crime. He can't refuse to meet you on such a small point of time and place. But this is what he will do. He will choose a field somewhere near a wayside station, where he can pick up the train. He is a very good swordsman, and he will trust to killing me in time to catch it. But I can fence well too, and I think I can keep him in play, at any rate, until the train is lost. Then perhaps he may kill me to console his feelings. You understand? Very well then, let me introduce you to some charming friends of mine," and leading them quickly across the parade, he presented them to the Marquis's seconds by two very aristocratic names of which they had not previously heard. Syme was subject to spasms of singular common sense, not otherwise a part of his character. They were (as he said of his impulse about the spectacles) poetic intuitions, and they sometimes rose to the exaltation of prophecy. He had correctly calculated in this case the policy of his opponent. When the Marquis was informed by his seconds that Syme could only fight in the morning, he must fully have realised that an obstacle had suddenly arisen between him and his bomb-throwing business in the capital. Naturally he could not explain this objection to his friends, so he chose the course which Syme had predicted. He induced his seconds to settle on a small meadow not far from the railway, and he trusted to the fatality of the first engagement. When he came down very coolly to the field of honour, no one could have guessed that he had any anxiety about a journey; his hands were in his pockets, his straw hat on the back of his head, his handsome face brazen in the sun. But it might have struck a stranger as odd that there appeared in his train, not only his seconds carrying the sword-case, but two of his servants carrying a portmanteau and a luncheon basket. Early as was the hour, the sun soaked everything in warmth, and Syme was vaguely surprised to see so many spring flowers burning gold and silver in the tall grass in which the whole company stood almost knee-deep. With the exception of the Marquis, all the men were in sombre and solemn morning-dress, with hats like black chimney-pots; the little Doctor especially, with the addition of his black spectacles, looked like an undertaker in a farce. Syme could not help feeling a comic contrast between this funereal church parade of apparel and the rich and glistening meadow, growing wild flowers everywhere. But, indeed, this comic contrast between the yellow blossoms and the black hats was but a symbol of the tragic contrast between the yellow blossoms and the black business. On his right was a

asserted

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

word-- "Please do not think me excessively abrupt; but I advise you to alter those plans, or if it is too late for that, to follow your agent with all the support you can get for him. Comrade Syme and I have had an experience which it would take more time to recount than we can afford, if we are to act on it. I will, however, relate the occurrence in detail, even at the risk of losing time, if you really feel that it is essential to the understanding of the problem we have to discuss." He was spinning out his sentences, making them intolerably long and lingering, in the hope of maddening the practical little Doctor into an explosion of impatience which might show his hand. But the little Doctor continued only to stare and smile, and the monologue was uphill work. Syme began to feel a new sickness and despair. The Doctor's smile and silence were not at all like the cataleptic stare and horrible silence which he had confronted in the Professor half an hour before. About the Professor's makeup and all his antics there was always something merely grotesque, like a gollywog. Syme remembered those wild woes of yesterday as one remembers being afraid of Bogy in childhood. But here was daylight; here was a healthy, square-shouldered man in tweeds, not odd save for the accident of his ugly spectacles, not glaring or grinning at all, but smiling steadily and not saying a word. The whole had a sense of unbearable reality. Under the increasing sunlight the colours of the Doctor's complexion, the pattern of his tweeds, grew and expanded outrageously, as such things grow too important in a realistic novel. But his smile was quite slight, the pose of his head polite; the only uncanny thing was his silence. "As I say," resumed the Professor, like a man toiling through heavy sand, "the incident that has occurred to us and has led us to ask for information about the Marquis, is one which you may think it better to have narrated; but as it came in the way of Comrade Syme rather than me--" His words he seemed to be dragging out like words in an anthem; but Syme, who was watching, saw his long fingers rattle quickly on the edge of the crazy table. He read the message, "You must go on. This devil has sucked me dry!" Syme plunged into the breach with that bravado of improvisation which always came to him when he was alarmed. "Yes, the thing really happened to me," he said hastily. "I had the good fortune to fall into conversation with a detective who took me, thanks to my hat, for a respectable person. Wishing to clinch my reputation for respectability, I took him and made him very drunk at the Savoy. Under this influence he became friendly, and told me in so many words that within a day or two they hope to arrest the Marquis in France. "So unless you or I can get on his track--" The Doctor was still smiling in the most friendly way, and his protected eyes were still impenetrable. The Professor signalled to Syme that he would resume his explanation, and he began again with the same elaborate calm. "Syme immediately brought this information to me, and we came here together to see what use you would be inclined to make of it. It seems to me unquestionably urgent that--" All this time Syme had been staring at the Doctor almost as steadily as the Doctor stared at the Professor, but quite without the smile. The nerves of both comrades-in-arms were near snapping under that strain of motionless amiability, when Syme suddenly leant forward and idly tapped the edge of the table. His message to his ally ran, "I have an intuition." The Professor, with scarcely a pause in his monologue, signalled back, "Then sit on it." Syme telegraphed, "It is quite extraordinary." The other answered, "Extraordinary rot!" Syme said, "I am a poet." The other retorted, "You are a dead man." Syme had gone quite red up to his yellow hair, and his eyes were burning feverishly. As he said he had an intuition, and it had risen to a sort of lightheaded certainty. Resuming his symbolic taps, he signalled to his friend, "You scarcely realise how poetic my intuition is. It has that sudden quality we sometimes feel in the coming of spring." He then studied the answer on his friend's fingers. The answer was, "Go to hell!" The Professor then resumed his merely verbal monologue addressed to the Doctor. "Perhaps I should rather say," said Syme on his fingers, "that it resembles that sudden smell of the sea which may be found in the heart of lush woods." His companion disdained to reply. "Or yet again," tapped Syme, "it is positive, as is the passionate red hair of a beautiful woman." The Professor was continuing his speech, but in the middle of it Syme decided to act. He leant across the table, and said in a voice that could not be neglected-- "Dr. Bull!" The Doctor's sleek and smiling head did not move, but they could have sworn that under his dark glasses his eyes darted towards Syme. "Dr. Bull," said Syme, in a voice peculiarly precise and courteous, "would you do me a small favour? Would you be so kind as to take off your spectacles?" The Professor swung round on his seat, and stared at Syme with a sort of frozen fury of astonishment. Syme, like a man who has thrown his life and fortune on the table, leaned forward with a fiery face. The Doctor did not move. For a few seconds there was a silence in which one could hear a pin drop, split once by the single hoot of a distant steamer on the Thames. Then Dr. Bull rose slowly, still smiling, and took off his spectacles. Syme sprang to his feet, stepping backwards a little, like a chemical lecturer from a successful explosion. His eyes were like stars, and for an instant he could only point without speaking. The Professor had also started to his feet, forgetful of his supposed paralysis. He leant on the back of the chair and stared doubtfully at Dr. Bull, as if the Doctor had been turned into a toad before his eyes. And indeed it was almost as great a transformation scene. The two detectives saw sitting in the chair before them a very boyish-looking young man, with very frank and happy hazel eyes, an open expression, cockney clothes like those of a city clerk, and an unquestionable breath about him of being very good and rather commonplace. The smile was still there, but it might have been the first smile of a baby. "I knew I was a poet," cried Syme in a sort of ecstasy. "I knew my intuition was as infallible as the Pope. It was the spectacles that did it! It was all the spectacles. Given those beastly black eyes, and all the rest of him his health and his jolly looks, made him a live devil among dead ones." "It certainly does make a queer difference," said the Professor shakily. "But as regards the project of Dr. Bull--" "Project be damned!" roared Syme, beside himself. "Look at him! Look at his face, look at his collar, look at his blessed boots! You don't suppose, do you, that that thing's an anarchist?" "Syme!" cried the other in an apprehensive agony. "Why, by God," said Syme, "I'll take the risk of that myself! Dr. Bull, I am a police officer. There's my card," and he flung down the blue card upon the table. The Professor still feared that all was lost; but he was loyal. He pulled out his own official card and put it beside his friend's. Then the third man burst out laughing, and for the first time that morning they heard his voice. "I'm awfully glad you chaps have come so early," he said, with a sort of schoolboy flippancy, "for we can all start for France together. Yes, I'm in the force right enough," and he flicked a blue card towards them lightly as a matter of form. Clapping a brisk bowler on his head and resuming his goblin glasses, the Doctor moved so quickly towards the door, that the others instinctively followed him. Syme seemed a little distrait, and as he passed under the doorway he suddenly struck his stick on the stone passage so that it rang. "But Lord God Almighty," he cried out, "if this is all right, there were more damned detectives than there were damned dynamiters at the damned Council!" "We might have fought easily," said Bull; "we were four against three." The Professor was descending the stairs, but his voice came up from below. "No," said the voice, "we were not four against three--we were not so lucky. We were four against One." The others went down the stairs in silence. The young man called Bull, with an innocent courtesy characteristic of him, insisted on going last until they reached the street; but there his own robust rapidity asserted itself unconsciously, and he walked quickly on ahead towards a railway inquiry office, talking to the others over his shoulder. "It is jolly to get some pals," he said. "I've been half dead with the jumps, being quite alone. I nearly flung my arms round Gogol and embraced him, which would have been imprudent. I hope you won't despise me for having been in a blue funk." "All the blue devils in blue hell," said Syme, "contributed to my blue funk! But the worst devil was you and your infernal goggles." The young man laughed delightedly. "Wasn't it a rag?" he said. "Such a simple idea--not my own. I haven't got the brains. You see, I wanted to go into the detective service, especially the anti-dynamite business. But for that purpose they wanted someone to dress up as a dynamiter; and they all swore by blazes that I could never look like a dynamiter. They said my very walk was respectable, and that seen from behind I looked like the British Constitution. They said I looked too healthy and too optimistic, and too reliable and benevolent; they called me all sorts of names at Scotland Yard. They said that if I had been a criminal, I might have made my fortune by looking so like an honest man; but as I had the misfortune to be an honest man, there was not even the remotest chance of my assisting them by ever looking like a criminal. But at last I was brought before some old josser who was high up in the force, and who seemed to have no end of a head on his shoulders. And there the others all talked hopelessly. One asked whether a bushy beard would hide my nice smile; another said that if they blacked my face I might look like a negro anarchist; but this old chap chipped in with a most extraordinary remark. 'A pair of smoked spectacles will do it,' he said positively. 'Look at him now; he looks like an angelic office boy. Put him on a pair of smoked spectacles, and children will scream at the sight of him.' And so it was, by George! When once my eyes were covered, all the rest, smile and big shoulders and short hair, made me look a perfect little devil. As I say, it was simple enough when it was done, like miracles; but that wasn't the really miraculous part of it. There was one really staggering thing about the business, and my head still turns at it." "What was that?" asked Syme. "I'll tell you," answered the man in spectacles. "This big pot in the police who sized me up so that he knew how the goggles would go with my hair and socks--by God, he never saw me at all!" Syme's eyes suddenly flashed on him. "How was that?" he asked. "I thought you talked to him." "So I did," said Bull brightly; "but we talked in a pitch-dark room like a coalcellar. There, you would never have guessed that." "I could not have conceived it," said Syme gravely. "It is indeed a new idea," said the Professor. Their new ally was in practical matters a whirlwind. At the inquiry office he asked with businesslike brevity about the trains for Dover. Having got his information, he bundled the company into a cab, and put them and himself inside a railway carriage before they had properly realised the breathless process. They were already on the Calais boat before conversation flowed freely. "I had already arranged," he explained, "to go to France for my lunch; but I am delighted to have someone to lunch with me. You see, I had to send that beast, the Marquis, over with his bomb, because the President had his eye on me, though God knows how. I'll tell you the story some day. It was perfectly choking. Whenever I tried to slip out of it I saw the President somewhere, smiling out of the bow-window of a club, or taking off his hat to me from the top of an omnibus. I tell you, you can say what you like, that fellow sold himself to the devil; he can be in six places at once." "So you sent the Marquis off, I understand," asked the Professor. "Was it long ago? Shall we be in time to catch him?" "Yes," answered the new guide, "I've timed it all. He'll still be at Calais when we arrive." "But when we do catch him at Calais," said the Professor, "what are we going to do?" At this question the countenance of Dr. Bull fell for the first time. He reflected a little, and then said-- "Theoretically, I suppose, we ought to call the police." "Not I," said Syme. "Theoretically I ought to drown myself first. I promised a poor fellow, who was a real modern pessimist, on my word of honour not to tell the police. I'm no hand at casuistry, but I can't break my word to a modern pessimist. It's like breaking one's word to a child." "I'm in the same boat," said the Professor. "I tried to tell the police and I couldn't, because of some silly oath I took. You see, when I was an actor I was a sort of all-round beast. Perjury or treason is the only crime I haven't committed. If I did that I shouldn't know the difference between right and wrong." "I've been through all that," said Dr. Bull, "and I've made up my mind. I gave my promise to the Secretary--you know him, man who smiles upside down. My friends, that man is the most utterly unhappy man that was ever human. It may be his digestion, or his conscience, or his nerves, or his philosophy of the universe, but he's damned, he's in hell! Well, I can't turn on a man like that, and hunt him down. It's like whipping a leper. I may be mad, but that's how I feel; and there's jolly well the end of it." "I don't think you're mad," said Syme. "I knew you would decide like that when first you--" "Eh?" said Dr. Bull. "When first you took off your spectacles." Dr. Bull smiled a little, and strolled across the deck to look at the sunlit sea. Then he strolled back again, kicking his heels carelessly, and a companionable silence fell between the three men. "Well," said Syme, "it seems that we have all the same kind of morality or immorality, so we had better face the fact that comes of it." "Yes," assented the Professor, "you're quite right; and we must hurry up, for I can see the Grey Nose standing out from France." "The fact that comes of it," said Syme seriously, "is this, that we three are alone on this planet. Gogol has gone, God knows where; perhaps the President has smashed him like a fly. On the Council we are three men against three, like the Romans who held the bridge. But we are worse off than that, first because they can appeal to their organization and we cannot appeal to ours, and second because--" "Because one of those other three men," said the Professor, "is not a man." Syme nodded and was silent for a second or two, then he said-- "My idea is this. We must do something to keep the Marquis in Calais till tomorrow midday. I have turned over twenty schemes in my head. We cannot denounce him as a dynamiter; that is agreed. We cannot get him detained on some trivial charge, for we should have to appear; he knows us, and he would smell a rat. We cannot pretend to keep him on anarchist business; he might swallow much in that way, but not the notion of stopping in Calais while the Czar went safely through Paris. We might try to kidnap him, and lock him up ourselves; but he is a well-known man here. He has a whole bodyguard of friends; he is very strong and brave, and the event is doubtful. The only thing I can see to do is actually to take advantage of the very things that are in the Marquis's favour. I am going to profit by the fact that he is a highly respected nobleman. I am going to profit by the fact that he has many friends and moves in the best society." "What the devil are you talking about?" asked the Professor. "The Symes are first mentioned in the fourteenth century," said Syme; "but there is a tradition that one of them rode behind Bruce at Bannockburn. Since 1350 the tree is quite clear." "He's gone off his head," said the little Doctor, staring. "Our bearings," continued Syme calmly, "are 'argent a chevron gules charged with three cross crosslets of the field.' The motto varies." The Professor seized Syme roughly by the waistcoat. "We are just inshore," he said. "Are you seasick or joking in the wrong place?" "My remarks are almost painfully practical," answered Syme, in an unhurried manner. "The house of St. Eustache also is very ancient. The Marquis cannot deny that he is a gentleman. He cannot deny that I am a gentleman. And in order to put the matter of my social position quite beyond a doubt, I propose at the earliest opportunity to knock his hat off. But here we are in the harbour." They went on shore under the strong sun in a sort of daze. Syme, who had now taken the lead as Bull had taken it in London, led them along a kind of marine parade until he came to some cafes, embowered in a bulk of greenery and overlooking the sea. As he went before them his step was slightly swaggering, and he swung his stick like a sword. He was making apparently for the extreme end of the line of cafes, but he stopped abruptly. With a sharp gesture he motioned them to silence, but he pointed with one gloved finger to a cafe table under a bank of flowering foliage at which sat the Marquis de St. Eustache, his teeth shining in his thick, black beard, and his bold, brown face shadowed by a light yellow straw hat and outlined against the violet sea. CHAPTER X. THE DUEL SYME sat down at a cafe table with his companions, his blue eyes sparkling like the bright sea below, and ordered a bottle of Saumur with a pleased impatience. He was for some reason in a condition of curious hilarity. His spirits were already unnaturally high; they rose as the Saumur sank, and in half an hour his talk was a torrent of nonsense. He professed to be making out a plan of the conversation which was going to ensue between himself and the deadly Marquis. He jotted it down wildly with a pencil. It was arranged like a printed catechism, with questions and answers, and was delivered with an extraordinary rapidity of utterance. "I shall approach. Before taking off his hat, I shall take off my own. I shall say, 'The Marquis de Saint Eustache, I believe.' He will say, 'The celebrated Mr. Syme, I presume.' He will say in the most exquisite French, 'How are you?' I shall reply in the most exquisite Cockney, 'Oh, just the Syme--'" "Oh, shut it," said the man in spectacles. "Pull yourself together, and chuck away that bit of paper. What are you really going to do?" "But it was a lovely catechism," said Syme pathetically. "Do let me read it you. It has only forty-three questions and answers, and some of the Marquis's answers are wonderfully witty. I like to be just to my enemy." "But what's the good of it all?" asked Dr. Bull in exasperation. "It leads up to my challenge, don't you see," said Syme, beaming. "When the Marquis has given the thirty-ninth reply, which runs--" "Has it by any chance occurred to you," asked the Professor, with a ponderous simplicity, "that the Marquis may not say all the forty-three things you have put down for him? In that case, I understand, your own epigrams may appear somewhat more forced." Syme struck the table with a radiant face. "Why, how true that is," he said, "and I never thought of it. Sir, you have an intellect beyond the common. You will make a name." "Oh, you're as drunk as an owl!" said the Doctor. "It only remains," continued Syme quite unperturbed, "to adopt some other method of breaking the ice (if I may so express it) between myself and the man I wish to kill. And since the course of a dialogue cannot be predicted by one of its parties alone (as you have pointed out with such recondite acumen), the only thing to be done, I suppose, is for the one party, as far as possible, to do all the dialogue by himself. And so I will, by George!" And he stood up suddenly, his yellow hair blowing in the slight sea breeze. A band was playing in a cafe chantant hidden somewhere among the trees, and a woman had just stopped singing. On Syme's heated head the bray of the brass band seemed like the jar and jingle of that barrel-organ in Leicester Square, to the tune of which he had once stood up to die. He looked across to the little table where the Marquis sat. The man had two companions now, solemn Frenchmen in frock-coats and silk hats, one of them with the red rosette of the Legion of Honour, evidently people of a solid social position. Besides these black, cylindrical costumes, the Marquis, in his loose straw hat and light spring clothes, looked Bohemian and even barbaric; but he looked the Marquis. Indeed, one might say that he looked the king, with his animal elegance, his scornful eyes, and his proud head lifted against the purple sea. But he was no Christian king, at any rate; he was, rather, some swarthy despot, half Greek, half Asiatic, who in the days when slavery seemed natural looked down on the Mediterranean, on his galley and his groaning slaves. Just so, Syme thought, would the brown-gold face of such a tyrant have shown against the dark green olives and the burning blue. "Are you going to address the meeting?" asked the Professor peevishly, seeing that Syme still stood up without moving. Syme drained his last glass of sparkling wine. "I am," he said, pointing across to the Marquis and his companions, "that meeting. That meeting displeases me. I am going to pull that meeting's great ugly, mahogany-coloured nose." He stepped across swiftly, if not quite steadily. The Marquis, seeing him, arched his black Assyrian eyebrows in surprise, but smiled politely. "You are Mr. Syme, I think," he said. Syme bowed. "And you are the Marquis de Saint Eustache," he said gracefully. "Permit me to pull your nose." He leant over to do so, but the Marquis started backwards, upsetting his chair, and the two men in top hats held Syme back by the shoulders. "This man has insulted me!" said Syme, with gestures of explanation. "Insulted you?" cried the gentleman with the red rosette, "when?" "Oh, just now," said Syme recklessly. "He insulted my mother." "Insulted your mother!" exclaimed the gentleman incredulously. "Well, anyhow," said Syme, conceding a point, "my aunt." "But how can the Marquis have insulted your aunt just now?" said the second gentleman with some legitimate wonder. "He has been sitting here all the time." "Ah, it was what he said!" said Syme darkly. "I said nothing at all," said the Marquis, "except something about the band. I only said that I liked Wagner played well." "It was an allusion to my family," said Syme firmly. "My aunt played Wagner badly. It was a painful subject. We are always being insulted about it." "This seems most extraordinary," said the gentleman who was decore, looking doubtfully at the Marquis. "Oh, I assure you," said Syme earnestly, "the whole of your conversation was simply packed with sinister allusions to my aunt's weaknesses." "This is nonsense!" said the second gentleman. "I for one have said nothing for half an hour except that I liked the singing of that girl with black hair." "Well, there you are again!" said Syme indignantly. "My aunt's was red." "It seems to me," said the other, "that you are simply seeking a pretext to insult the Marquis." "By George!" said Syme, facing round and looking at him, "what a clever chap you are!" The Marquis started up with eyes flaming like a tiger's. "Seeking a quarrel with me!" he cried. "Seeking a fight with me! By God! there was never a man who had to seek long. These gentlemen will perhaps act for me. There are still four hours of daylight. Let us fight this evening." Syme bowed with a quite beautiful graciousness. "Marquis," he said, "your action is worthy of your fame and blood. Permit me to consult for a moment with the gentlemen in whose hands I shall place myself." In three long strides he rejoined his companions, and they, who had seen his champagne-inspired attack and listened to his idiotic explanations, were quite startled at the look of him. For now that he came back to them he was quite sober, a little pale, and he spoke in a low voice of passionate practicality. "I have done it," he said hoarsely. "I have fixed a fight on the beast. But look here, and listen carefully. There is no time for talk. You are my seconds, and everything must come from you. Now you must insist, and insist absolutely, on the duel coming off after seven tomorrow, so as to give me the chance of preventing him from catching the 7.45 for Paris. If he misses that he misses his crime. He can't refuse to meet you on such a small point of time and place. But this is what he will do. He will choose a field somewhere near a wayside station, where he can pick up the train. He is a very good swordsman, and he will trust to killing me in time to catch it. But I can fence well too, and I think I can keep him in play, at any rate, until the train is lost. Then perhaps he may kill me to console his feelings. You understand? Very well then, let me introduce you to some charming friends of mine," and leading them quickly across the parade, he presented them to the Marquis's seconds by two very aristocratic names of which they had not previously heard. Syme was subject to spasms of singular common sense, not otherwise a part of his character. They were (as he said of his impulse about the spectacles) poetic intuitions, and they sometimes rose to the exaltation of prophecy. He had correctly calculated in this case the policy of his opponent. When the Marquis was informed by his seconds that Syme could only fight in the morning, he must fully have realised that an obstacle had suddenly arisen between him and his bomb-throwing business in the capital. Naturally he could not explain this objection to his friends, so he chose the course which Syme had predicted. He induced his seconds to settle on a small meadow not far from the railway, and he trusted to the fatality of the first engagement. When he came down very coolly to the field of honour, no one could have guessed that he had any anxiety about a journey; his hands were in his pockets, his straw hat on the back of his head, his handsome face brazen in the sun. But it might have struck a stranger as odd that there appeared in his train, not only his seconds carrying the sword-case, but two of his servants carrying a portmanteau and a luncheon basket. Early as was the hour, the sun soaked everything in warmth, and Syme was vaguely surprised to see so many spring flowers burning gold and silver in the tall grass in which the whole company stood almost knee-deep. With the exception of the Marquis, all the men were in sombre and solemn morning-dress, with hats like black chimney-pots; the little Doctor especially, with the addition of his black spectacles, looked like an undertaker in a farce. Syme could not help feeling a comic contrast between this funereal church parade of apparel and the rich and glistening meadow, growing wild flowers everywhere. But, indeed, this comic contrast between the yellow blossoms and the black hats was but a symbol of the tragic contrast between the yellow blossoms and the black business. On his right was a

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word-- "Please do not think me excessively abrupt; but I advise you to alter those plans, or if it is too late for that, to follow your agent with all the support you can get for him. Comrade Syme and I have had an experience which it would take more time to recount than we can afford, if we are to act on it. I will, however, relate the occurrence in detail, even at the risk of losing time, if you really feel that it is essential to the understanding of the problem we have to discuss." He was spinning out his sentences, making them intolerably long and lingering, in the hope of maddening the practical little Doctor into an explosion of impatience which might show his hand. But the little Doctor continued only to stare and smile, and the monologue was uphill work. Syme began to feel a new sickness and despair. The Doctor's smile and silence were not at all like the cataleptic stare and horrible silence which he had confronted in the Professor half an hour before. About the Professor's makeup and all his antics there was always something merely grotesque, like a gollywog. Syme remembered those wild woes of yesterday as one remembers being afraid of Bogy in childhood. But here was daylight; here was a healthy, square-shouldered man in tweeds, not odd save for the accident of his ugly spectacles, not glaring or grinning at all, but smiling steadily and not saying a word. The whole had a sense of unbearable reality. Under the increasing sunlight the colours of the Doctor's complexion, the pattern of his tweeds, grew and expanded outrageously, as such things grow too important in a realistic novel. But his smile was quite slight, the pose of his head polite; the only uncanny thing was his silence. "As I say," resumed the Professor, like a man toiling through heavy sand, "the incident that has occurred to us and has led us to ask for information about the Marquis, is one which you may think it better to have narrated; but as it came in the way of Comrade Syme rather than me--" His words he seemed to be dragging out like words in an anthem; but Syme, who was watching, saw his long fingers rattle quickly on the edge of the crazy table. He read the message, "You must go on. This devil has sucked me dry!" Syme plunged into the breach with that bravado of improvisation which always came to him when he was alarmed. "Yes, the thing really happened to me," he said hastily. "I had the good fortune to fall into conversation with a detective who took me, thanks to my hat, for a respectable person. Wishing to clinch my reputation for respectability, I took him and made him very drunk at the Savoy. Under this influence he became friendly, and told me in so many words that within a day or two they hope to arrest the Marquis in France. "So unless you or I can get on his track--" The Doctor was still smiling in the most friendly way, and his protected eyes were still impenetrable. The Professor signalled to Syme that he would resume his explanation, and he began again with the same elaborate calm. "Syme immediately brought this information to me, and we came here together to see what use you would be inclined to make of it. It seems to me unquestionably urgent that--" All this time Syme had been staring at the Doctor almost as steadily as the Doctor stared at the Professor, but quite without the smile. The nerves of both comrades-in-arms were near snapping under that strain of motionless amiability, when Syme suddenly leant forward and idly tapped the edge of the table. His message to his ally ran, "I have an intuition." The Professor, with scarcely a pause in his monologue, signalled back, "Then sit on it." Syme telegraphed, "It is quite extraordinary." The other answered, "Extraordinary rot!" Syme said, "I am a poet." The other retorted, "You are a dead man." Syme had gone quite red up to his yellow hair, and his eyes were burning feverishly. As he said he had an intuition, and it had risen to a sort of lightheaded certainty. Resuming his symbolic taps, he signalled to his friend, "You scarcely realise how poetic my intuition is. It has that sudden quality we sometimes feel in the coming of spring." He then studied the answer on his friend's fingers. The answer was, "Go to hell!" The Professor then resumed his merely verbal monologue addressed to the Doctor. "Perhaps I should rather say," said Syme on his fingers, "that it resembles that sudden smell of the sea which may be found in the heart of lush woods." His companion disdained to reply. "Or yet again," tapped Syme, "it is positive, as is the passionate red hair of a beautiful woman." The Professor was continuing his speech, but in the middle of it Syme decided to act. He leant across the table, and said in a voice that could not be neglected-- "Dr. Bull!" The Doctor's sleek and smiling head did not move, but they could have sworn that under his dark glasses his eyes darted towards Syme. "Dr. Bull," said Syme, in a voice peculiarly precise and courteous, "would you do me a small favour? Would you be so kind as to take off your spectacles?" The Professor swung round on his seat, and stared at Syme with a sort of frozen fury of astonishment. Syme, like a man who has thrown his life and fortune on the table, leaned forward with a fiery face. The Doctor did not move. For a few seconds there was a silence in which one could hear a pin drop, split once by the single hoot of a distant steamer on the Thames. Then Dr. Bull rose slowly, still smiling, and took off his spectacles. Syme sprang to his feet, stepping backwards a little, like a chemical lecturer from a successful explosion. His eyes were like stars, and for an instant he could only point without speaking. The Professor had also started to his feet, forgetful of his supposed paralysis. He leant on the back of the chair and stared doubtfully at Dr. Bull, as if the Doctor had been turned into a toad before his eyes. And indeed it was almost as great a transformation scene. The two detectives saw sitting in the chair before them a very boyish-looking young man, with very frank and happy hazel eyes, an open expression, cockney clothes like those of a city clerk, and an unquestionable breath about him of being very good and rather commonplace. The smile was still there, but it might have been the first smile of a baby. "I knew I was a poet," cried Syme in a sort of ecstasy. "I knew my intuition was as infallible as the Pope. It was the spectacles that did it! It was all the spectacles. Given those beastly black eyes, and all the rest of him his health and his jolly looks, made him a live devil among dead ones." "It certainly does make a queer difference," said the Professor shakily. "But as regards the project of Dr. Bull--" "Project be damned!" roared Syme, beside himself. "Look at him! Look at his face, look at his collar, look at his blessed boots! You don't suppose, do you, that that thing's an anarchist?" "Syme!" cried the other in an apprehensive agony. "Why, by God," said Syme, "I'll take the risk of that myself! Dr. Bull, I am a police officer. There's my card," and he flung down the blue card upon the table. The Professor still feared that all was lost; but he was loyal. He pulled out his own official card and put it beside his friend's. Then the third man burst out laughing, and for the first time that morning they heard his voice. "I'm awfully glad you chaps have come so early," he said, with a sort of schoolboy flippancy, "for we can all start for France together. Yes, I'm in the force right enough," and he flicked a blue card towards them lightly as a matter of form. Clapping a brisk bowler on his head and resuming his goblin glasses, the Doctor moved so quickly towards the door, that the others instinctively followed him. Syme seemed a little distrait, and as he passed under the doorway he suddenly struck his stick on the stone passage so that it rang. "But Lord God Almighty," he cried out, "if this is all right, there were more damned detectives than there were damned dynamiters at the damned Council!" "We might have fought easily," said Bull; "we were four against three." The Professor was descending the stairs, but his voice came up from below. "No," said the voice, "we were not four against three--we were not so lucky. We were four against One." The others went down the stairs in silence. The young man called Bull, with an innocent courtesy characteristic of him, insisted on going last until they reached the street; but there his own robust rapidity asserted itself unconsciously, and he walked quickly on ahead towards a railway inquiry office, talking to the others over his shoulder. "It is jolly to get some pals," he said. "I've been half dead with the jumps, being quite alone. I nearly flung my arms round Gogol and embraced him, which would have been imprudent. I hope you won't despise me for having been in a blue funk." "All the blue devils in blue hell," said Syme, "contributed to my blue funk! But the worst devil was you and your infernal goggles." The young man laughed delightedly. "Wasn't it a rag?" he said. "Such a simple idea--not my own. I haven't got the brains. You see, I wanted to go into the detective service, especially the anti-dynamite business. But for that purpose they wanted someone to dress up as a dynamiter; and they all swore by blazes that I could never look like a dynamiter. They said my very walk was respectable, and that seen from behind I looked like the British Constitution. They said I looked too healthy and too optimistic, and too reliable and benevolent; they called me all sorts of names at Scotland Yard. They said that if I had been a criminal, I might have made my fortune by looking so like an honest man; but as I had the misfortune to be an honest man, there was not even the remotest chance of my assisting them by ever looking like a criminal. But at last I was brought before some old josser who was high up in the force, and who seemed to have no end of a head on his shoulders. And there the others all talked hopelessly. One asked whether a bushy beard would hide my nice smile; another said that if they blacked my face I might look like a negro anarchist; but this old chap chipped in with a most extraordinary remark. 'A pair of smoked spectacles will do it,' he said positively. 'Look at him now; he looks like an angelic office boy. Put him on a pair of smoked spectacles, and children will scream at the sight of him.' And so it was, by George! When once my eyes were covered, all the rest, smile and big shoulders and short hair, made me look a perfect little devil. As I say, it was simple enough when it was done, like miracles; but that wasn't the really miraculous part of it. There was one really staggering thing about the business, and my head still turns at it." "What was that?" asked Syme. "I'll tell you," answered the man in spectacles. "This big pot in the police who sized me up so that he knew how the goggles would go with my hair and socks--by God, he never saw me at all!" Syme's eyes suddenly flashed on him. "How was that?" he asked. "I thought you talked to him." "So I did," said Bull brightly; "but we talked in a pitch-dark room like a coalcellar. There, you would never have guessed that." "I could not have conceived it," said Syme gravely. "It is indeed a new idea," said the Professor. Their new ally was in practical matters a whirlwind. At the inquiry office he asked with businesslike brevity about the trains for Dover. Having got his information, he bundled the company into a cab, and put them and himself inside a railway carriage before they had properly realised the breathless process. They were already on the Calais boat before conversation flowed freely. "I had already arranged," he explained, "to go to France for my lunch; but I am delighted to have someone to lunch with me. You see, I had to send that beast, the Marquis, over with his bomb, because the President had his eye on me, though God knows how. I'll tell you the story some day. It was perfectly choking. Whenever I tried to slip out of it I saw the President somewhere, smiling out of the bow-window of a club, or taking off his hat to me from the top of an omnibus. I tell you, you can say what you like, that fellow sold himself to the devil; he can be in six places at once." "So you sent the Marquis off, I understand," asked the Professor. "Was it long ago? Shall we be in time to catch him?" "Yes," answered the new guide, "I've timed it all. He'll still be at Calais when we arrive." "But when we do catch him at Calais," said the Professor, "what are we going to do?" At this question the countenance of Dr. Bull fell for the first time. He reflected a little, and then said-- "Theoretically, I suppose, we ought to call the police." "Not I," said Syme. "Theoretically I ought to drown myself first. I promised a poor fellow, who was a real modern pessimist, on my word of honour not to tell the police. I'm no hand at casuistry, but I can't break my word to a modern pessimist. It's like breaking one's word to a child." "I'm in the same boat," said the Professor. "I tried to tell the police and I couldn't, because of some silly oath I took. You see, when I was an actor I was a sort of all-round beast. Perjury or treason is the only crime I haven't committed. If I did that I shouldn't know the difference between right and wrong." "I've been through all that," said Dr. Bull, "and I've made up my mind. I gave my promise to the Secretary--you know him, man who smiles upside down. My friends, that man is the most utterly unhappy man that was ever human. It may be his digestion, or his conscience, or his nerves, or his philosophy of the universe, but he's damned, he's in hell! Well, I can't turn on a man like that, and hunt him down. It's like whipping a leper. I may be mad, but that's how I feel; and there's jolly well the end of it." "I don't think you're mad," said Syme. "I knew you would decide like that when first you--" "Eh?" said Dr. Bull. "When first you took off your spectacles." Dr. Bull smiled a little, and strolled across the deck to look at the sunlit sea. Then he strolled back again, kicking his heels carelessly, and a companionable silence fell between the three men. "Well," said Syme, "it seems that we have all the same kind of morality or immorality, so we had better face the fact that comes of it." "Yes," assented the Professor, "you're quite right; and we must hurry up, for I can see the Grey Nose standing out from France." "The fact that comes of it," said Syme seriously, "is this, that we three are alone on this planet. Gogol has gone, God knows where; perhaps the President has smashed him like a fly. On the Council we are three men against three, like the Romans who held the bridge. But we are worse off than that, first because they can appeal to their organization and we cannot appeal to ours, and second because--" "Because one of those other three men," said the Professor, "is not a man." Syme nodded and was silent for a second or two, then he said-- "My idea is this. We must do something to keep the Marquis in Calais till tomorrow midday. I have turned over twenty schemes in my head. We cannot denounce him as a dynamiter; that is agreed. We cannot get him detained on some trivial charge, for we should have to appear; he knows us, and he would smell a rat. We cannot pretend to keep him on anarchist business; he might swallow much in that way, but not the notion of stopping in Calais while the Czar went safely through Paris. We might try to kidnap him, and lock him up ourselves; but he is a well-known man here. He has a whole bodyguard of friends; he is very strong and brave, and the event is doubtful. The only thing I can see to do is actually to take advantage of the very things that are in the Marquis's favour. I am going to profit by the fact that he is a highly respected nobleman. I am going to profit by the fact that he has many friends and moves in the best society." "What the devil are you talking about?" asked the Professor. "The Symes are first mentioned in the fourteenth century," said Syme; "but there is a tradition that one of them rode behind Bruce at Bannockburn. Since 1350 the tree is quite clear." "He's gone off his head," said the little Doctor, staring. "Our bearings," continued Syme calmly, "are 'argent a chevron gules charged with three cross crosslets of the field.' The motto varies." The Professor seized Syme roughly by the waistcoat. "We are just inshore," he said. "Are you seasick or joking in the wrong place?" "My remarks are almost painfully practical," answered Syme, in an unhurried manner. "The house of St. Eustache also is very ancient. The Marquis cannot deny that he is a gentleman. He cannot deny that I am a gentleman. And in order to put the matter of my social position quite beyond a doubt, I propose at the earliest opportunity to knock his hat off. But here we are in the harbour." They went on shore under the strong sun in a sort of daze. Syme, who had now taken the lead as Bull had taken it in London, led them along a kind of marine parade until he came to some cafes, embowered in a bulk of greenery and overlooking the sea. As he went before them his step was slightly swaggering, and he swung his stick like a sword. He was making apparently for the extreme end of the line of cafes, but he stopped abruptly. With a sharp gesture he motioned them to silence, but he pointed with one gloved finger to a cafe table under a bank of flowering foliage at which sat the Marquis de St. Eustache, his teeth shining in his thick, black beard, and his bold, brown face shadowed by a light yellow straw hat and outlined against the violet sea. CHAPTER X. THE DUEL SYME sat down at a cafe table with his companions, his blue eyes sparkling like the bright sea below, and ordered a bottle of Saumur with a pleased impatience. He was for some reason in a condition of curious hilarity. His spirits were already unnaturally high; they rose as the Saumur sank, and in half an hour his talk was a torrent of nonsense. He professed to be making out a plan of the conversation which was going to ensue between himself and the deadly Marquis. He jotted it down wildly with a pencil. It was arranged like a printed catechism, with questions and answers, and was delivered with an extraordinary rapidity of utterance. "I shall approach. Before taking off his hat, I shall take off my own. I shall say, 'The Marquis de Saint Eustache, I believe.' He will say, 'The celebrated Mr. Syme, I presume.' He will say in the most exquisite French, 'How are you?' I shall reply in the most exquisite Cockney, 'Oh, just the Syme--'" "Oh, shut it," said the man in spectacles. "Pull yourself together, and chuck away that bit of paper. What are you really going to do?" "But it was a lovely catechism," said Syme pathetically. "Do let me read it you. It has only forty-three questions and answers, and some of the Marquis's answers are wonderfully witty. I like to be just to my enemy." "But what's the good of it all?" asked Dr. Bull in exasperation. "It leads up to my challenge, don't you see," said Syme, beaming. "When the Marquis has given the thirty-ninth reply, which runs--" "Has it by any chance occurred to you," asked the Professor, with a ponderous simplicity, "that the Marquis may not say all the forty-three things you have put down for him? In that case, I understand, your own epigrams may appear somewhat more forced." Syme struck the table with a radiant face. "Why, how true that is," he said, "and I never thought of it. Sir, you have an intellect beyond the common. You will make a name." "Oh, you're as drunk as an owl!" said the Doctor. "It only remains," continued Syme quite unperturbed, "to adopt some other method of breaking the ice (if I may so express it) between myself and the man I wish to kill. And since the course of a dialogue cannot be predicted by one of its parties alone (as you have pointed out with such recondite acumen), the only thing to be done, I suppose, is for the one party, as far as possible, to do all the dialogue by himself. And so I will, by George!" And he stood up suddenly, his yellow hair blowing in the slight sea breeze. A band was playing in a cafe chantant hidden somewhere among the trees, and a woman had just stopped singing. On Syme's heated head the bray of the brass band seemed like the jar and jingle of that barrel-organ in Leicester Square, to the tune of which he had once stood up to die. He looked across to the little table where the Marquis sat. The man had two companions now, solemn Frenchmen in frock-coats and silk hats, one of them with the red rosette of the Legion of Honour, evidently people of a solid social position. Besides these black, cylindrical costumes, the Marquis, in his loose straw hat and light spring clothes, looked Bohemian and even barbaric; but he looked the Marquis. Indeed, one might say that he looked the king, with his animal elegance, his scornful eyes, and his proud head lifted against the purple sea. But he was no Christian king, at any rate; he was, rather, some swarthy despot, half Greek, half Asiatic, who in the days when slavery seemed natural looked down on the Mediterranean, on his galley and his groaning slaves. Just so, Syme thought, would the brown-gold face of such a tyrant have shown against the dark green olives and the burning blue. "Are you going to address the meeting?" asked the Professor peevishly, seeing that Syme still stood up without moving. Syme drained his last glass of sparkling wine. "I am," he said, pointing across to the Marquis and his companions, "that meeting. That meeting displeases me. I am going to pull that meeting's great ugly, mahogany-coloured nose." He stepped across swiftly, if not quite steadily. The Marquis, seeing him, arched his black Assyrian eyebrows in surprise, but smiled politely. "You are Mr. Syme, I think," he said. Syme bowed. "And you are the Marquis de Saint Eustache," he said gracefully. "Permit me to pull your nose." He leant over to do so, but the Marquis started backwards, upsetting his chair, and the two men in top hats held Syme back by the shoulders. "This man has insulted me!" said Syme, with gestures of explanation. "Insulted you?" cried the gentleman with the red rosette, "when?" "Oh, just now," said Syme recklessly. "He insulted my mother." "Insulted your mother!" exclaimed the gentleman incredulously. "Well, anyhow," said Syme, conceding a point, "my aunt." "But how can the Marquis have insulted your aunt just now?" said the second gentleman with some legitimate wonder. "He has been sitting here all the time." "Ah, it was what he said!" said Syme darkly. "I said nothing at all," said the Marquis, "except something about the band. I only said that I liked Wagner played well." "It was an allusion to my family," said Syme firmly. "My aunt played Wagner badly. It was a painful subject. We are always being insulted about it." "This seems most extraordinary," said the gentleman who was decore, looking doubtfully at the Marquis. "Oh, I assure you," said Syme earnestly, "the whole of your conversation was simply packed with sinister allusions to my aunt's weaknesses." "This is nonsense!" said the second gentleman. "I for one have said nothing for half an hour except that I liked the singing of that girl with black hair." "Well, there you are again!" said Syme indignantly. "My aunt's was red." "It seems to me," said the other, "that you are simply seeking a pretext to insult the Marquis." "By George!" said Syme, facing round and looking at him, "what a clever chap you are!" The Marquis started up with eyes flaming like a tiger's. "Seeking a quarrel with me!" he cried. "Seeking a fight with me! By God! there was never a man who had to seek long. These gentlemen will perhaps act for me. There are still four hours of daylight. Let us fight this evening." Syme bowed with a quite beautiful graciousness. "Marquis," he said, "your action is worthy of your fame and blood. Permit me to consult for a moment with the gentlemen in whose hands I shall place myself." In three long strides he rejoined his companions, and they, who had seen his champagne-inspired attack and listened to his idiotic explanations, were quite startled at the look of him. For now that he came back to them he was quite sober, a little pale, and he spoke in a low voice of passionate practicality. "I have done it," he said hoarsely. "I have fixed a fight on the beast. But look here, and listen carefully. There is no time for talk. You are my seconds, and everything must come from you. Now you must insist, and insist absolutely, on the duel coming off after seven tomorrow, so as to give me the chance of preventing him from catching the 7.45 for Paris. If he misses that he misses his crime. He can't refuse to meet you on such a small point of time and place. But this is what he will do. He will choose a field somewhere near a wayside station, where he can pick up the train. He is a very good swordsman, and he will trust to killing me in time to catch it. But I can fence well too, and I think I can keep him in play, at any rate, until the train is lost. Then perhaps he may kill me to console his feelings. You understand? Very well then, let me introduce you to some charming friends of mine," and leading them quickly across the parade, he presented them to the Marquis's seconds by two very aristocratic names of which they had not previously heard. Syme was subject to spasms of singular common sense, not otherwise a part of his character. They were (as he said of his impulse about the spectacles) poetic intuitions, and they sometimes rose to the exaltation of prophecy. He had correctly calculated in this case the policy of his opponent. When the Marquis was informed by his seconds that Syme could only fight in the morning, he must fully have realised that an obstacle had suddenly arisen between him and his bomb-throwing business in the capital. Naturally he could not explain this objection to his friends, so he chose the course which Syme had predicted. He induced his seconds to settle on a small meadow not far from the railway, and he trusted to the fatality of the first engagement. When he came down very coolly to the field of honour, no one could have guessed that he had any anxiety about a journey; his hands were in his pockets, his straw hat on the back of his head, his handsome face brazen in the sun. But it might have struck a stranger as odd that there appeared in his train, not only his seconds carrying the sword-case, but two of his servants carrying a portmanteau and a luncheon basket. Early as was the hour, the sun soaked everything in warmth, and Syme was vaguely surprised to see so many spring flowers burning gold and silver in the tall grass in which the whole company stood almost knee-deep. With the exception of the Marquis, all the men were in sombre and solemn morning-dress, with hats like black chimney-pots; the little Doctor especially, with the addition of his black spectacles, looked like an undertaker in a farce. Syme could not help feeling a comic contrast between this funereal church parade of apparel and the rich and glistening meadow, growing wild flowers everywhere. But, indeed, this comic contrast between the yellow blossoms and the black hats was but a symbol of the tragic contrast between the yellow blossoms and the black business. On his right was a

horrible

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

word-- "Please do not think me excessively abrupt; but I advise you to alter those plans, or if it is too late for that, to follow your agent with all the support you can get for him. Comrade Syme and I have had an experience which it would take more time to recount than we can afford, if we are to act on it. I will, however, relate the occurrence in detail, even at the risk of losing time, if you really feel that it is essential to the understanding of the problem we have to discuss." He was spinning out his sentences, making them intolerably long and lingering, in the hope of maddening the practical little Doctor into an explosion of impatience which might show his hand. But the little Doctor continued only to stare and smile, and the monologue was uphill work. Syme began to feel a new sickness and despair. The Doctor's smile and silence were not at all like the cataleptic stare and horrible silence which he had confronted in the Professor half an hour before. About the Professor's makeup and all his antics there was always something merely grotesque, like a gollywog. Syme remembered those wild woes of yesterday as one remembers being afraid of Bogy in childhood. But here was daylight; here was a healthy, square-shouldered man in tweeds, not odd save for the accident of his ugly spectacles, not glaring or grinning at all, but smiling steadily and not saying a word. The whole had a sense of unbearable reality. Under the increasing sunlight the colours of the Doctor's complexion, the pattern of his tweeds, grew and expanded outrageously, as such things grow too important in a realistic novel. But his smile was quite slight, the pose of his head polite; the only uncanny thing was his silence. "As I say," resumed the Professor, like a man toiling through heavy sand, "the incident that has occurred to us and has led us to ask for information about the Marquis, is one which you may think it better to have narrated; but as it came in the way of Comrade Syme rather than me--" His words he seemed to be dragging out like words in an anthem; but Syme, who was watching, saw his long fingers rattle quickly on the edge of the crazy table. He read the message, "You must go on. This devil has sucked me dry!" Syme plunged into the breach with that bravado of improvisation which always came to him when he was alarmed. "Yes, the thing really happened to me," he said hastily. "I had the good fortune to fall into conversation with a detective who took me, thanks to my hat, for a respectable person. Wishing to clinch my reputation for respectability, I took him and made him very drunk at the Savoy. Under this influence he became friendly, and told me in so many words that within a day or two they hope to arrest the Marquis in France. "So unless you or I can get on his track--" The Doctor was still smiling in the most friendly way, and his protected eyes were still impenetrable. The Professor signalled to Syme that he would resume his explanation, and he began again with the same elaborate calm. "Syme immediately brought this information to me, and we came here together to see what use you would be inclined to make of it. It seems to me unquestionably urgent that--" All this time Syme had been staring at the Doctor almost as steadily as the Doctor stared at the Professor, but quite without the smile. The nerves of both comrades-in-arms were near snapping under that strain of motionless amiability, when Syme suddenly leant forward and idly tapped the edge of the table. His message to his ally ran, "I have an intuition." The Professor, with scarcely a pause in his monologue, signalled back, "Then sit on it." Syme telegraphed, "It is quite extraordinary." The other answered, "Extraordinary rot!" Syme said, "I am a poet." The other retorted, "You are a dead man." Syme had gone quite red up to his yellow hair, and his eyes were burning feverishly. As he said he had an intuition, and it had risen to a sort of lightheaded certainty. Resuming his symbolic taps, he signalled to his friend, "You scarcely realise how poetic my intuition is. It has that sudden quality we sometimes feel in the coming of spring." He then studied the answer on his friend's fingers. The answer was, "Go to hell!" The Professor then resumed his merely verbal monologue addressed to the Doctor. "Perhaps I should rather say," said Syme on his fingers, "that it resembles that sudden smell of the sea which may be found in the heart of lush woods." His companion disdained to reply. "Or yet again," tapped Syme, "it is positive, as is the passionate red hair of a beautiful woman." The Professor was continuing his speech, but in the middle of it Syme decided to act. He leant across the table, and said in a voice that could not be neglected-- "Dr. Bull!" The Doctor's sleek and smiling head did not move, but they could have sworn that under his dark glasses his eyes darted towards Syme. "Dr. Bull," said Syme, in a voice peculiarly precise and courteous, "would you do me a small favour? Would you be so kind as to take off your spectacles?" The Professor swung round on his seat, and stared at Syme with a sort of frozen fury of astonishment. Syme, like a man who has thrown his life and fortune on the table, leaned forward with a fiery face. The Doctor did not move. For a few seconds there was a silence in which one could hear a pin drop, split once by the single hoot of a distant steamer on the Thames. Then Dr. Bull rose slowly, still smiling, and took off his spectacles. Syme sprang to his feet, stepping backwards a little, like a chemical lecturer from a successful explosion. His eyes were like stars, and for an instant he could only point without speaking. The Professor had also started to his feet, forgetful of his supposed paralysis. He leant on the back of the chair and stared doubtfully at Dr. Bull, as if the Doctor had been turned into a toad before his eyes. And indeed it was almost as great a transformation scene. The two detectives saw sitting in the chair before them a very boyish-looking young man, with very frank and happy hazel eyes, an open expression, cockney clothes like those of a city clerk, and an unquestionable breath about him of being very good and rather commonplace. The smile was still there, but it might have been the first smile of a baby. "I knew I was a poet," cried Syme in a sort of ecstasy. "I knew my intuition was as infallible as the Pope. It was the spectacles that did it! It was all the spectacles. Given those beastly black eyes, and all the rest of him his health and his jolly looks, made him a live devil among dead ones." "It certainly does make a queer difference," said the Professor shakily. "But as regards the project of Dr. Bull--" "Project be damned!" roared Syme, beside himself. "Look at him! Look at his face, look at his collar, look at his blessed boots! You don't suppose, do you, that that thing's an anarchist?" "Syme!" cried the other in an apprehensive agony. "Why, by God," said Syme, "I'll take the risk of that myself! Dr. Bull, I am a police officer. There's my card," and he flung down the blue card upon the table. The Professor still feared that all was lost; but he was loyal. He pulled out his own official card and put it beside his friend's. Then the third man burst out laughing, and for the first time that morning they heard his voice. "I'm awfully glad you chaps have come so early," he said, with a sort of schoolboy flippancy, "for we can all start for France together. Yes, I'm in the force right enough," and he flicked a blue card towards them lightly as a matter of form. Clapping a brisk bowler on his head and resuming his goblin glasses, the Doctor moved so quickly towards the door, that the others instinctively followed him. Syme seemed a little distrait, and as he passed under the doorway he suddenly struck his stick on the stone passage so that it rang. "But Lord God Almighty," he cried out, "if this is all right, there were more damned detectives than there were damned dynamiters at the damned Council!" "We might have fought easily," said Bull; "we were four against three." The Professor was descending the stairs, but his voice came up from below. "No," said the voice, "we were not four against three--we were not so lucky. We were four against One." The others went down the stairs in silence. The young man called Bull, with an innocent courtesy characteristic of him, insisted on going last until they reached the street; but there his own robust rapidity asserted itself unconsciously, and he walked quickly on ahead towards a railway inquiry office, talking to the others over his shoulder. "It is jolly to get some pals," he said. "I've been half dead with the jumps, being quite alone. I nearly flung my arms round Gogol and embraced him, which would have been imprudent. I hope you won't despise me for having been in a blue funk." "All the blue devils in blue hell," said Syme, "contributed to my blue funk! But the worst devil was you and your infernal goggles." The young man laughed delightedly. "Wasn't it a rag?" he said. "Such a simple idea--not my own. I haven't got the brains. You see, I wanted to go into the detective service, especially the anti-dynamite business. But for that purpose they wanted someone to dress up as a dynamiter; and they all swore by blazes that I could never look like a dynamiter. They said my very walk was respectable, and that seen from behind I looked like the British Constitution. They said I looked too healthy and too optimistic, and too reliable and benevolent; they called me all sorts of names at Scotland Yard. They said that if I had been a criminal, I might have made my fortune by looking so like an honest man; but as I had the misfortune to be an honest man, there was not even the remotest chance of my assisting them by ever looking like a criminal. But at last I was brought before some old josser who was high up in the force, and who seemed to have no end of a head on his shoulders. And there the others all talked hopelessly. One asked whether a bushy beard would hide my nice smile; another said that if they blacked my face I might look like a negro anarchist; but this old chap chipped in with a most extraordinary remark. 'A pair of smoked spectacles will do it,' he said positively. 'Look at him now; he looks like an angelic office boy. Put him on a pair of smoked spectacles, and children will scream at the sight of him.' And so it was, by George! When once my eyes were covered, all the rest, smile and big shoulders and short hair, made me look a perfect little devil. As I say, it was simple enough when it was done, like miracles; but that wasn't the really miraculous part of it. There was one really staggering thing about the business, and my head still turns at it." "What was that?" asked Syme. "I'll tell you," answered the man in spectacles. "This big pot in the police who sized me up so that he knew how the goggles would go with my hair and socks--by God, he never saw me at all!" Syme's eyes suddenly flashed on him. "How was that?" he asked. "I thought you talked to him." "So I did," said Bull brightly; "but we talked in a pitch-dark room like a coalcellar. There, you would never have guessed that." "I could not have conceived it," said Syme gravely. "It is indeed a new idea," said the Professor. Their new ally was in practical matters a whirlwind. At the inquiry office he asked with businesslike brevity about the trains for Dover. Having got his information, he bundled the company into a cab, and put them and himself inside a railway carriage before they had properly realised the breathless process. They were already on the Calais boat before conversation flowed freely. "I had already arranged," he explained, "to go to France for my lunch; but I am delighted to have someone to lunch with me. You see, I had to send that beast, the Marquis, over with his bomb, because the President had his eye on me, though God knows how. I'll tell you the story some day. It was perfectly choking. Whenever I tried to slip out of it I saw the President somewhere, smiling out of the bow-window of a club, or taking off his hat to me from the top of an omnibus. I tell you, you can say what you like, that fellow sold himself to the devil; he can be in six places at once." "So you sent the Marquis off, I understand," asked the Professor. "Was it long ago? Shall we be in time to catch him?" "Yes," answered the new guide, "I've timed it all. He'll still be at Calais when we arrive." "But when we do catch him at Calais," said the Professor, "what are we going to do?" At this question the countenance of Dr. Bull fell for the first time. He reflected a little, and then said-- "Theoretically, I suppose, we ought to call the police." "Not I," said Syme. "Theoretically I ought to drown myself first. I promised a poor fellow, who was a real modern pessimist, on my word of honour not to tell the police. I'm no hand at casuistry, but I can't break my word to a modern pessimist. It's like breaking one's word to a child." "I'm in the same boat," said the Professor. "I tried to tell the police and I couldn't, because of some silly oath I took. You see, when I was an actor I was a sort of all-round beast. Perjury or treason is the only crime I haven't committed. If I did that I shouldn't know the difference between right and wrong." "I've been through all that," said Dr. Bull, "and I've made up my mind. I gave my promise to the Secretary--you know him, man who smiles upside down. My friends, that man is the most utterly unhappy man that was ever human. It may be his digestion, or his conscience, or his nerves, or his philosophy of the universe, but he's damned, he's in hell! Well, I can't turn on a man like that, and hunt him down. It's like whipping a leper. I may be mad, but that's how I feel; and there's jolly well the end of it." "I don't think you're mad," said Syme. "I knew you would decide like that when first you--" "Eh?" said Dr. Bull. "When first you took off your spectacles." Dr. Bull smiled a little, and strolled across the deck to look at the sunlit sea. Then he strolled back again, kicking his heels carelessly, and a companionable silence fell between the three men. "Well," said Syme, "it seems that we have all the same kind of morality or immorality, so we had better face the fact that comes of it." "Yes," assented the Professor, "you're quite right; and we must hurry up, for I can see the Grey Nose standing out from France." "The fact that comes of it," said Syme seriously, "is this, that we three are alone on this planet. Gogol has gone, God knows where; perhaps the President has smashed him like a fly. On the Council we are three men against three, like the Romans who held the bridge. But we are worse off than that, first because they can appeal to their organization and we cannot appeal to ours, and second because--" "Because one of those other three men," said the Professor, "is not a man." Syme nodded and was silent for a second or two, then he said-- "My idea is this. We must do something to keep the Marquis in Calais till tomorrow midday. I have turned over twenty schemes in my head. We cannot denounce him as a dynamiter; that is agreed. We cannot get him detained on some trivial charge, for we should have to appear; he knows us, and he would smell a rat. We cannot pretend to keep him on anarchist business; he might swallow much in that way, but not the notion of stopping in Calais while the Czar went safely through Paris. We might try to kidnap him, and lock him up ourselves; but he is a well-known man here. He has a whole bodyguard of friends; he is very strong and brave, and the event is doubtful. The only thing I can see to do is actually to take advantage of the very things that are in the Marquis's favour. I am going to profit by the fact that he is a highly respected nobleman. I am going to profit by the fact that he has many friends and moves in the best society." "What the devil are you talking about?" asked the Professor. "The Symes are first mentioned in the fourteenth century," said Syme; "but there is a tradition that one of them rode behind Bruce at Bannockburn. Since 1350 the tree is quite clear." "He's gone off his head," said the little Doctor, staring. "Our bearings," continued Syme calmly, "are 'argent a chevron gules charged with three cross crosslets of the field.' The motto varies." The Professor seized Syme roughly by the waistcoat. "We are just inshore," he said. "Are you seasick or joking in the wrong place?" "My remarks are almost painfully practical," answered Syme, in an unhurried manner. "The house of St. Eustache also is very ancient. The Marquis cannot deny that he is a gentleman. He cannot deny that I am a gentleman. And in order to put the matter of my social position quite beyond a doubt, I propose at the earliest opportunity to knock his hat off. But here we are in the harbour." They went on shore under the strong sun in a sort of daze. Syme, who had now taken the lead as Bull had taken it in London, led them along a kind of marine parade until he came to some cafes, embowered in a bulk of greenery and overlooking the sea. As he went before them his step was slightly swaggering, and he swung his stick like a sword. He was making apparently for the extreme end of the line of cafes, but he stopped abruptly. With a sharp gesture he motioned them to silence, but he pointed with one gloved finger to a cafe table under a bank of flowering foliage at which sat the Marquis de St. Eustache, his teeth shining in his thick, black beard, and his bold, brown face shadowed by a light yellow straw hat and outlined against the violet sea. CHAPTER X. THE DUEL SYME sat down at a cafe table with his companions, his blue eyes sparkling like the bright sea below, and ordered a bottle of Saumur with a pleased impatience. He was for some reason in a condition of curious hilarity. His spirits were already unnaturally high; they rose as the Saumur sank, and in half an hour his talk was a torrent of nonsense. He professed to be making out a plan of the conversation which was going to ensue between himself and the deadly Marquis. He jotted it down wildly with a pencil. It was arranged like a printed catechism, with questions and answers, and was delivered with an extraordinary rapidity of utterance. "I shall approach. Before taking off his hat, I shall take off my own. I shall say, 'The Marquis de Saint Eustache, I believe.' He will say, 'The celebrated Mr. Syme, I presume.' He will say in the most exquisite French, 'How are you?' I shall reply in the most exquisite Cockney, 'Oh, just the Syme--'" "Oh, shut it," said the man in spectacles. "Pull yourself together, and chuck away that bit of paper. What are you really going to do?" "But it was a lovely catechism," said Syme pathetically. "Do let me read it you. It has only forty-three questions and answers, and some of the Marquis's answers are wonderfully witty. I like to be just to my enemy." "But what's the good of it all?" asked Dr. Bull in exasperation. "It leads up to my challenge, don't you see," said Syme, beaming. "When the Marquis has given the thirty-ninth reply, which runs--" "Has it by any chance occurred to you," asked the Professor, with a ponderous simplicity, "that the Marquis may not say all the forty-three things you have put down for him? In that case, I understand, your own epigrams may appear somewhat more forced." Syme struck the table with a radiant face. "Why, how true that is," he said, "and I never thought of it. Sir, you have an intellect beyond the common. You will make a name." "Oh, you're as drunk as an owl!" said the Doctor. "It only remains," continued Syme quite unperturbed, "to adopt some other method of breaking the ice (if I may so express it) between myself and the man I wish to kill. And since the course of a dialogue cannot be predicted by one of its parties alone (as you have pointed out with such recondite acumen), the only thing to be done, I suppose, is for the one party, as far as possible, to do all the dialogue by himself. And so I will, by George!" And he stood up suddenly, his yellow hair blowing in the slight sea breeze. A band was playing in a cafe chantant hidden somewhere among the trees, and a woman had just stopped singing. On Syme's heated head the bray of the brass band seemed like the jar and jingle of that barrel-organ in Leicester Square, to the tune of which he had once stood up to die. He looked across to the little table where the Marquis sat. The man had two companions now, solemn Frenchmen in frock-coats and silk hats, one of them with the red rosette of the Legion of Honour, evidently people of a solid social position. Besides these black, cylindrical costumes, the Marquis, in his loose straw hat and light spring clothes, looked Bohemian and even barbaric; but he looked the Marquis. Indeed, one might say that he looked the king, with his animal elegance, his scornful eyes, and his proud head lifted against the purple sea. But he was no Christian king, at any rate; he was, rather, some swarthy despot, half Greek, half Asiatic, who in the days when slavery seemed natural looked down on the Mediterranean, on his galley and his groaning slaves. Just so, Syme thought, would the brown-gold face of such a tyrant have shown against the dark green olives and the burning blue. "Are you going to address the meeting?" asked the Professor peevishly, seeing that Syme still stood up without moving. Syme drained his last glass of sparkling wine. "I am," he said, pointing across to the Marquis and his companions, "that meeting. That meeting displeases me. I am going to pull that meeting's great ugly, mahogany-coloured nose." He stepped across swiftly, if not quite steadily. The Marquis, seeing him, arched his black Assyrian eyebrows in surprise, but smiled politely. "You are Mr. Syme, I think," he said. Syme bowed. "And you are the Marquis de Saint Eustache," he said gracefully. "Permit me to pull your nose." He leant over to do so, but the Marquis started backwards, upsetting his chair, and the two men in top hats held Syme back by the shoulders. "This man has insulted me!" said Syme, with gestures of explanation. "Insulted you?" cried the gentleman with the red rosette, "when?" "Oh, just now," said Syme recklessly. "He insulted my mother." "Insulted your mother!" exclaimed the gentleman incredulously. "Well, anyhow," said Syme, conceding a point, "my aunt." "But how can the Marquis have insulted your aunt just now?" said the second gentleman with some legitimate wonder. "He has been sitting here all the time." "Ah, it was what he said!" said Syme darkly. "I said nothing at all," said the Marquis, "except something about the band. I only said that I liked Wagner played well." "It was an allusion to my family," said Syme firmly. "My aunt played Wagner badly. It was a painful subject. We are always being insulted about it." "This seems most extraordinary," said the gentleman who was decore, looking doubtfully at the Marquis. "Oh, I assure you," said Syme earnestly, "the whole of your conversation was simply packed with sinister allusions to my aunt's weaknesses." "This is nonsense!" said the second gentleman. "I for one have said nothing for half an hour except that I liked the singing of that girl with black hair." "Well, there you are again!" said Syme indignantly. "My aunt's was red." "It seems to me," said the other, "that you are simply seeking a pretext to insult the Marquis." "By George!" said Syme, facing round and looking at him, "what a clever chap you are!" The Marquis started up with eyes flaming like a tiger's. "Seeking a quarrel with me!" he cried. "Seeking a fight with me! By God! there was never a man who had to seek long. These gentlemen will perhaps act for me. There are still four hours of daylight. Let us fight this evening." Syme bowed with a quite beautiful graciousness. "Marquis," he said, "your action is worthy of your fame and blood. Permit me to consult for a moment with the gentlemen in whose hands I shall place myself." In three long strides he rejoined his companions, and they, who had seen his champagne-inspired attack and listened to his idiotic explanations, were quite startled at the look of him. For now that he came back to them he was quite sober, a little pale, and he spoke in a low voice of passionate practicality. "I have done it," he said hoarsely. "I have fixed a fight on the beast. But look here, and listen carefully. There is no time for talk. You are my seconds, and everything must come from you. Now you must insist, and insist absolutely, on the duel coming off after seven tomorrow, so as to give me the chance of preventing him from catching the 7.45 for Paris. If he misses that he misses his crime. He can't refuse to meet you on such a small point of time and place. But this is what he will do. He will choose a field somewhere near a wayside station, where he can pick up the train. He is a very good swordsman, and he will trust to killing me in time to catch it. But I can fence well too, and I think I can keep him in play, at any rate, until the train is lost. Then perhaps he may kill me to console his feelings. You understand? Very well then, let me introduce you to some charming friends of mine," and leading them quickly across the parade, he presented them to the Marquis's seconds by two very aristocratic names of which they had not previously heard. Syme was subject to spasms of singular common sense, not otherwise a part of his character. They were (as he said of his impulse about the spectacles) poetic intuitions, and they sometimes rose to the exaltation of prophecy. He had correctly calculated in this case the policy of his opponent. When the Marquis was informed by his seconds that Syme could only fight in the morning, he must fully have realised that an obstacle had suddenly arisen between him and his bomb-throwing business in the capital. Naturally he could not explain this objection to his friends, so he chose the course which Syme had predicted. He induced his seconds to settle on a small meadow not far from the railway, and he trusted to the fatality of the first engagement. When he came down very coolly to the field of honour, no one could have guessed that he had any anxiety about a journey; his hands were in his pockets, his straw hat on the back of his head, his handsome face brazen in the sun. But it might have struck a stranger as odd that there appeared in his train, not only his seconds carrying the sword-case, but two of his servants carrying a portmanteau and a luncheon basket. Early as was the hour, the sun soaked everything in warmth, and Syme was vaguely surprised to see so many spring flowers burning gold and silver in the tall grass in which the whole company stood almost knee-deep. With the exception of the Marquis, all the men were in sombre and solemn morning-dress, with hats like black chimney-pots; the little Doctor especially, with the addition of his black spectacles, looked like an undertaker in a farce. Syme could not help feeling a comic contrast between this funereal church parade of apparel and the rich and glistening meadow, growing wild flowers everywhere. But, indeed, this comic contrast between the yellow blossoms and the black hats was but a symbol of the tragic contrast between the yellow blossoms and the black business. On his right was a

dead

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word-- "Please do not think me excessively abrupt; but I advise you to alter those plans, or if it is too late for that, to follow your agent with all the support you can get for him. Comrade Syme and I have had an experience which it would take more time to recount than we can afford, if we are to act on it. I will, however, relate the occurrence in detail, even at the risk of losing time, if you really feel that it is essential to the understanding of the problem we have to discuss." He was spinning out his sentences, making them intolerably long and lingering, in the hope of maddening the practical little Doctor into an explosion of impatience which might show his hand. But the little Doctor continued only to stare and smile, and the monologue was uphill work. Syme began to feel a new sickness and despair. The Doctor's smile and silence were not at all like the cataleptic stare and horrible silence which he had confronted in the Professor half an hour before. About the Professor's makeup and all his antics there was always something merely grotesque, like a gollywog. Syme remembered those wild woes of yesterday as one remembers being afraid of Bogy in childhood. But here was daylight; here was a healthy, square-shouldered man in tweeds, not odd save for the accident of his ugly spectacles, not glaring or grinning at all, but smiling steadily and not saying a word. The whole had a sense of unbearable reality. Under the increasing sunlight the colours of the Doctor's complexion, the pattern of his tweeds, grew and expanded outrageously, as such things grow too important in a realistic novel. But his smile was quite slight, the pose of his head polite; the only uncanny thing was his silence. "As I say," resumed the Professor, like a man toiling through heavy sand, "the incident that has occurred to us and has led us to ask for information about the Marquis, is one which you may think it better to have narrated; but as it came in the way of Comrade Syme rather than me--" His words he seemed to be dragging out like words in an anthem; but Syme, who was watching, saw his long fingers rattle quickly on the edge of the crazy table. He read the message, "You must go on. This devil has sucked me dry!" Syme plunged into the breach with that bravado of improvisation which always came to him when he was alarmed. "Yes, the thing really happened to me," he said hastily. "I had the good fortune to fall into conversation with a detective who took me, thanks to my hat, for a respectable person. Wishing to clinch my reputation for respectability, I took him and made him very drunk at the Savoy. Under this influence he became friendly, and told me in so many words that within a day or two they hope to arrest the Marquis in France. "So unless you or I can get on his track--" The Doctor was still smiling in the most friendly way, and his protected eyes were still impenetrable. The Professor signalled to Syme that he would resume his explanation, and he began again with the same elaborate calm. "Syme immediately brought this information to me, and we came here together to see what use you would be inclined to make of it. It seems to me unquestionably urgent that--" All this time Syme had been staring at the Doctor almost as steadily as the Doctor stared at the Professor, but quite without the smile. The nerves of both comrades-in-arms were near snapping under that strain of motionless amiability, when Syme suddenly leant forward and idly tapped the edge of the table. His message to his ally ran, "I have an intuition." The Professor, with scarcely a pause in his monologue, signalled back, "Then sit on it." Syme telegraphed, "It is quite extraordinary." The other answered, "Extraordinary rot!" Syme said, "I am a poet." The other retorted, "You are a dead man." Syme had gone quite red up to his yellow hair, and his eyes were burning feverishly. As he said he had an intuition, and it had risen to a sort of lightheaded certainty. Resuming his symbolic taps, he signalled to his friend, "You scarcely realise how poetic my intuition is. It has that sudden quality we sometimes feel in the coming of spring." He then studied the answer on his friend's fingers. The answer was, "Go to hell!" The Professor then resumed his merely verbal monologue addressed to the Doctor. "Perhaps I should rather say," said Syme on his fingers, "that it resembles that sudden smell of the sea which may be found in the heart of lush woods." His companion disdained to reply. "Or yet again," tapped Syme, "it is positive, as is the passionate red hair of a beautiful woman." The Professor was continuing his speech, but in the middle of it Syme decided to act. He leant across the table, and said in a voice that could not be neglected-- "Dr. Bull!" The Doctor's sleek and smiling head did not move, but they could have sworn that under his dark glasses his eyes darted towards Syme. "Dr. Bull," said Syme, in a voice peculiarly precise and courteous, "would you do me a small favour? Would you be so kind as to take off your spectacles?" The Professor swung round on his seat, and stared at Syme with a sort of frozen fury of astonishment. Syme, like a man who has thrown his life and fortune on the table, leaned forward with a fiery face. The Doctor did not move. For a few seconds there was a silence in which one could hear a pin drop, split once by the single hoot of a distant steamer on the Thames. Then Dr. Bull rose slowly, still smiling, and took off his spectacles. Syme sprang to his feet, stepping backwards a little, like a chemical lecturer from a successful explosion. His eyes were like stars, and for an instant he could only point without speaking. The Professor had also started to his feet, forgetful of his supposed paralysis. He leant on the back of the chair and stared doubtfully at Dr. Bull, as if the Doctor had been turned into a toad before his eyes. And indeed it was almost as great a transformation scene. The two detectives saw sitting in the chair before them a very boyish-looking young man, with very frank and happy hazel eyes, an open expression, cockney clothes like those of a city clerk, and an unquestionable breath about him of being very good and rather commonplace. The smile was still there, but it might have been the first smile of a baby. "I knew I was a poet," cried Syme in a sort of ecstasy. "I knew my intuition was as infallible as the Pope. It was the spectacles that did it! It was all the spectacles. Given those beastly black eyes, and all the rest of him his health and his jolly looks, made him a live devil among dead ones." "It certainly does make a queer difference," said the Professor shakily. "But as regards the project of Dr. Bull--" "Project be damned!" roared Syme, beside himself. "Look at him! Look at his face, look at his collar, look at his blessed boots! You don't suppose, do you, that that thing's an anarchist?" "Syme!" cried the other in an apprehensive agony. "Why, by God," said Syme, "I'll take the risk of that myself! Dr. Bull, I am a police officer. There's my card," and he flung down the blue card upon the table. The Professor still feared that all was lost; but he was loyal. He pulled out his own official card and put it beside his friend's. Then the third man burst out laughing, and for the first time that morning they heard his voice. "I'm awfully glad you chaps have come so early," he said, with a sort of schoolboy flippancy, "for we can all start for France together. Yes, I'm in the force right enough," and he flicked a blue card towards them lightly as a matter of form. Clapping a brisk bowler on his head and resuming his goblin glasses, the Doctor moved so quickly towards the door, that the others instinctively followed him. Syme seemed a little distrait, and as he passed under the doorway he suddenly struck his stick on the stone passage so that it rang. "But Lord God Almighty," he cried out, "if this is all right, there were more damned detectives than there were damned dynamiters at the damned Council!" "We might have fought easily," said Bull; "we were four against three." The Professor was descending the stairs, but his voice came up from below. "No," said the voice, "we were not four against three--we were not so lucky. We were four against One." The others went down the stairs in silence. The young man called Bull, with an innocent courtesy characteristic of him, insisted on going last until they reached the street; but there his own robust rapidity asserted itself unconsciously, and he walked quickly on ahead towards a railway inquiry office, talking to the others over his shoulder. "It is jolly to get some pals," he said. "I've been half dead with the jumps, being quite alone. I nearly flung my arms round Gogol and embraced him, which would have been imprudent. I hope you won't despise me for having been in a blue funk." "All the blue devils in blue hell," said Syme, "contributed to my blue funk! But the worst devil was you and your infernal goggles." The young man laughed delightedly. "Wasn't it a rag?" he said. "Such a simple idea--not my own. I haven't got the brains. You see, I wanted to go into the detective service, especially the anti-dynamite business. But for that purpose they wanted someone to dress up as a dynamiter; and they all swore by blazes that I could never look like a dynamiter. They said my very walk was respectable, and that seen from behind I looked like the British Constitution. They said I looked too healthy and too optimistic, and too reliable and benevolent; they called me all sorts of names at Scotland Yard. They said that if I had been a criminal, I might have made my fortune by looking so like an honest man; but as I had the misfortune to be an honest man, there was not even the remotest chance of my assisting them by ever looking like a criminal. But at last I was brought before some old josser who was high up in the force, and who seemed to have no end of a head on his shoulders. And there the others all talked hopelessly. One asked whether a bushy beard would hide my nice smile; another said that if they blacked my face I might look like a negro anarchist; but this old chap chipped in with a most extraordinary remark. 'A pair of smoked spectacles will do it,' he said positively. 'Look at him now; he looks like an angelic office boy. Put him on a pair of smoked spectacles, and children will scream at the sight of him.' And so it was, by George! When once my eyes were covered, all the rest, smile and big shoulders and short hair, made me look a perfect little devil. As I say, it was simple enough when it was done, like miracles; but that wasn't the really miraculous part of it. There was one really staggering thing about the business, and my head still turns at it." "What was that?" asked Syme. "I'll tell you," answered the man in spectacles. "This big pot in the police who sized me up so that he knew how the goggles would go with my hair and socks--by God, he never saw me at all!" Syme's eyes suddenly flashed on him. "How was that?" he asked. "I thought you talked to him." "So I did," said Bull brightly; "but we talked in a pitch-dark room like a coalcellar. There, you would never have guessed that." "I could not have conceived it," said Syme gravely. "It is indeed a new idea," said the Professor. Their new ally was in practical matters a whirlwind. At the inquiry office he asked with businesslike brevity about the trains for Dover. Having got his information, he bundled the company into a cab, and put them and himself inside a railway carriage before they had properly realised the breathless process. They were already on the Calais boat before conversation flowed freely. "I had already arranged," he explained, "to go to France for my lunch; but I am delighted to have someone to lunch with me. You see, I had to send that beast, the Marquis, over with his bomb, because the President had his eye on me, though God knows how. I'll tell you the story some day. It was perfectly choking. Whenever I tried to slip out of it I saw the President somewhere, smiling out of the bow-window of a club, or taking off his hat to me from the top of an omnibus. I tell you, you can say what you like, that fellow sold himself to the devil; he can be in six places at once." "So you sent the Marquis off, I understand," asked the Professor. "Was it long ago? Shall we be in time to catch him?" "Yes," answered the new guide, "I've timed it all. He'll still be at Calais when we arrive." "But when we do catch him at Calais," said the Professor, "what are we going to do?" At this question the countenance of Dr. Bull fell for the first time. He reflected a little, and then said-- "Theoretically, I suppose, we ought to call the police." "Not I," said Syme. "Theoretically I ought to drown myself first. I promised a poor fellow, who was a real modern pessimist, on my word of honour not to tell the police. I'm no hand at casuistry, but I can't break my word to a modern pessimist. It's like breaking one's word to a child." "I'm in the same boat," said the Professor. "I tried to tell the police and I couldn't, because of some silly oath I took. You see, when I was an actor I was a sort of all-round beast. Perjury or treason is the only crime I haven't committed. If I did that I shouldn't know the difference between right and wrong." "I've been through all that," said Dr. Bull, "and I've made up my mind. I gave my promise to the Secretary--you know him, man who smiles upside down. My friends, that man is the most utterly unhappy man that was ever human. It may be his digestion, or his conscience, or his nerves, or his philosophy of the universe, but he's damned, he's in hell! Well, I can't turn on a man like that, and hunt him down. It's like whipping a leper. I may be mad, but that's how I feel; and there's jolly well the end of it." "I don't think you're mad," said Syme. "I knew you would decide like that when first you--" "Eh?" said Dr. Bull. "When first you took off your spectacles." Dr. Bull smiled a little, and strolled across the deck to look at the sunlit sea. Then he strolled back again, kicking his heels carelessly, and a companionable silence fell between the three men. "Well," said Syme, "it seems that we have all the same kind of morality or immorality, so we had better face the fact that comes of it." "Yes," assented the Professor, "you're quite right; and we must hurry up, for I can see the Grey Nose standing out from France." "The fact that comes of it," said Syme seriously, "is this, that we three are alone on this planet. Gogol has gone, God knows where; perhaps the President has smashed him like a fly. On the Council we are three men against three, like the Romans who held the bridge. But we are worse off than that, first because they can appeal to their organization and we cannot appeal to ours, and second because--" "Because one of those other three men," said the Professor, "is not a man." Syme nodded and was silent for a second or two, then he said-- "My idea is this. We must do something to keep the Marquis in Calais till tomorrow midday. I have turned over twenty schemes in my head. We cannot denounce him as a dynamiter; that is agreed. We cannot get him detained on some trivial charge, for we should have to appear; he knows us, and he would smell a rat. We cannot pretend to keep him on anarchist business; he might swallow much in that way, but not the notion of stopping in Calais while the Czar went safely through Paris. We might try to kidnap him, and lock him up ourselves; but he is a well-known man here. He has a whole bodyguard of friends; he is very strong and brave, and the event is doubtful. The only thing I can see to do is actually to take advantage of the very things that are in the Marquis's favour. I am going to profit by the fact that he is a highly respected nobleman. I am going to profit by the fact that he has many friends and moves in the best society." "What the devil are you talking about?" asked the Professor. "The Symes are first mentioned in the fourteenth century," said Syme; "but there is a tradition that one of them rode behind Bruce at Bannockburn. Since 1350 the tree is quite clear." "He's gone off his head," said the little Doctor, staring. "Our bearings," continued Syme calmly, "are 'argent a chevron gules charged with three cross crosslets of the field.' The motto varies." The Professor seized Syme roughly by the waistcoat. "We are just inshore," he said. "Are you seasick or joking in the wrong place?" "My remarks are almost painfully practical," answered Syme, in an unhurried manner. "The house of St. Eustache also is very ancient. The Marquis cannot deny that he is a gentleman. He cannot deny that I am a gentleman. And in order to put the matter of my social position quite beyond a doubt, I propose at the earliest opportunity to knock his hat off. But here we are in the harbour." They went on shore under the strong sun in a sort of daze. Syme, who had now taken the lead as Bull had taken it in London, led them along a kind of marine parade until he came to some cafes, embowered in a bulk of greenery and overlooking the sea. As he went before them his step was slightly swaggering, and he swung his stick like a sword. He was making apparently for the extreme end of the line of cafes, but he stopped abruptly. With a sharp gesture he motioned them to silence, but he pointed with one gloved finger to a cafe table under a bank of flowering foliage at which sat the Marquis de St. Eustache, his teeth shining in his thick, black beard, and his bold, brown face shadowed by a light yellow straw hat and outlined against the violet sea. CHAPTER X. THE DUEL SYME sat down at a cafe table with his companions, his blue eyes sparkling like the bright sea below, and ordered a bottle of Saumur with a pleased impatience. He was for some reason in a condition of curious hilarity. His spirits were already unnaturally high; they rose as the Saumur sank, and in half an hour his talk was a torrent of nonsense. He professed to be making out a plan of the conversation which was going to ensue between himself and the deadly Marquis. He jotted it down wildly with a pencil. It was arranged like a printed catechism, with questions and answers, and was delivered with an extraordinary rapidity of utterance. "I shall approach. Before taking off his hat, I shall take off my own. I shall say, 'The Marquis de Saint Eustache, I believe.' He will say, 'The celebrated Mr. Syme, I presume.' He will say in the most exquisite French, 'How are you?' I shall reply in the most exquisite Cockney, 'Oh, just the Syme--'" "Oh, shut it," said the man in spectacles. "Pull yourself together, and chuck away that bit of paper. What are you really going to do?" "But it was a lovely catechism," said Syme pathetically. "Do let me read it you. It has only forty-three questions and answers, and some of the Marquis's answers are wonderfully witty. I like to be just to my enemy." "But what's the good of it all?" asked Dr. Bull in exasperation. "It leads up to my challenge, don't you see," said Syme, beaming. "When the Marquis has given the thirty-ninth reply, which runs--" "Has it by any chance occurred to you," asked the Professor, with a ponderous simplicity, "that the Marquis may not say all the forty-three things you have put down for him? In that case, I understand, your own epigrams may appear somewhat more forced." Syme struck the table with a radiant face. "Why, how true that is," he said, "and I never thought of it. Sir, you have an intellect beyond the common. You will make a name." "Oh, you're as drunk as an owl!" said the Doctor. "It only remains," continued Syme quite unperturbed, "to adopt some other method of breaking the ice (if I may so express it) between myself and the man I wish to kill. And since the course of a dialogue cannot be predicted by one of its parties alone (as you have pointed out with such recondite acumen), the only thing to be done, I suppose, is for the one party, as far as possible, to do all the dialogue by himself. And so I will, by George!" And he stood up suddenly, his yellow hair blowing in the slight sea breeze. A band was playing in a cafe chantant hidden somewhere among the trees, and a woman had just stopped singing. On Syme's heated head the bray of the brass band seemed like the jar and jingle of that barrel-organ in Leicester Square, to the tune of which he had once stood up to die. He looked across to the little table where the Marquis sat. The man had two companions now, solemn Frenchmen in frock-coats and silk hats, one of them with the red rosette of the Legion of Honour, evidently people of a solid social position. Besides these black, cylindrical costumes, the Marquis, in his loose straw hat and light spring clothes, looked Bohemian and even barbaric; but he looked the Marquis. Indeed, one might say that he looked the king, with his animal elegance, his scornful eyes, and his proud head lifted against the purple sea. But he was no Christian king, at any rate; he was, rather, some swarthy despot, half Greek, half Asiatic, who in the days when slavery seemed natural looked down on the Mediterranean, on his galley and his groaning slaves. Just so, Syme thought, would the brown-gold face of such a tyrant have shown against the dark green olives and the burning blue. "Are you going to address the meeting?" asked the Professor peevishly, seeing that Syme still stood up without moving. Syme drained his last glass of sparkling wine. "I am," he said, pointing across to the Marquis and his companions, "that meeting. That meeting displeases me. I am going to pull that meeting's great ugly, mahogany-coloured nose." He stepped across swiftly, if not quite steadily. The Marquis, seeing him, arched his black Assyrian eyebrows in surprise, but smiled politely. "You are Mr. Syme, I think," he said. Syme bowed. "And you are the Marquis de Saint Eustache," he said gracefully. "Permit me to pull your nose." He leant over to do so, but the Marquis started backwards, upsetting his chair, and the two men in top hats held Syme back by the shoulders. "This man has insulted me!" said Syme, with gestures of explanation. "Insulted you?" cried the gentleman with the red rosette, "when?" "Oh, just now," said Syme recklessly. "He insulted my mother." "Insulted your mother!" exclaimed the gentleman incredulously. "Well, anyhow," said Syme, conceding a point, "my aunt." "But how can the Marquis have insulted your aunt just now?" said the second gentleman with some legitimate wonder. "He has been sitting here all the time." "Ah, it was what he said!" said Syme darkly. "I said nothing at all," said the Marquis, "except something about the band. I only said that I liked Wagner played well." "It was an allusion to my family," said Syme firmly. "My aunt played Wagner badly. It was a painful subject. We are always being insulted about it." "This seems most extraordinary," said the gentleman who was decore, looking doubtfully at the Marquis. "Oh, I assure you," said Syme earnestly, "the whole of your conversation was simply packed with sinister allusions to my aunt's weaknesses." "This is nonsense!" said the second gentleman. "I for one have said nothing for half an hour except that I liked the singing of that girl with black hair." "Well, there you are again!" said Syme indignantly. "My aunt's was red." "It seems to me," said the other, "that you are simply seeking a pretext to insult the Marquis." "By George!" said Syme, facing round and looking at him, "what a clever chap you are!" The Marquis started up with eyes flaming like a tiger's. "Seeking a quarrel with me!" he cried. "Seeking a fight with me! By God! there was never a man who had to seek long. These gentlemen will perhaps act for me. There are still four hours of daylight. Let us fight this evening." Syme bowed with a quite beautiful graciousness. "Marquis," he said, "your action is worthy of your fame and blood. Permit me to consult for a moment with the gentlemen in whose hands I shall place myself." In three long strides he rejoined his companions, and they, who had seen his champagne-inspired attack and listened to his idiotic explanations, were quite startled at the look of him. For now that he came back to them he was quite sober, a little pale, and he spoke in a low voice of passionate practicality. "I have done it," he said hoarsely. "I have fixed a fight on the beast. But look here, and listen carefully. There is no time for talk. You are my seconds, and everything must come from you. Now you must insist, and insist absolutely, on the duel coming off after seven tomorrow, so as to give me the chance of preventing him from catching the 7.45 for Paris. If he misses that he misses his crime. He can't refuse to meet you on such a small point of time and place. But this is what he will do. He will choose a field somewhere near a wayside station, where he can pick up the train. He is a very good swordsman, and he will trust to killing me in time to catch it. But I can fence well too, and I think I can keep him in play, at any rate, until the train is lost. Then perhaps he may kill me to console his feelings. You understand? Very well then, let me introduce you to some charming friends of mine," and leading them quickly across the parade, he presented them to the Marquis's seconds by two very aristocratic names of which they had not previously heard. Syme was subject to spasms of singular common sense, not otherwise a part of his character. They were (as he said of his impulse about the spectacles) poetic intuitions, and they sometimes rose to the exaltation of prophecy. He had correctly calculated in this case the policy of his opponent. When the Marquis was informed by his seconds that Syme could only fight in the morning, he must fully have realised that an obstacle had suddenly arisen between him and his bomb-throwing business in the capital. Naturally he could not explain this objection to his friends, so he chose the course which Syme had predicted. He induced his seconds to settle on a small meadow not far from the railway, and he trusted to the fatality of the first engagement. When he came down very coolly to the field of honour, no one could have guessed that he had any anxiety about a journey; his hands were in his pockets, his straw hat on the back of his head, his handsome face brazen in the sun. But it might have struck a stranger as odd that there appeared in his train, not only his seconds carrying the sword-case, but two of his servants carrying a portmanteau and a luncheon basket. Early as was the hour, the sun soaked everything in warmth, and Syme was vaguely surprised to see so many spring flowers burning gold and silver in the tall grass in which the whole company stood almost knee-deep. With the exception of the Marquis, all the men were in sombre and solemn morning-dress, with hats like black chimney-pots; the little Doctor especially, with the addition of his black spectacles, looked like an undertaker in a farce. Syme could not help feeling a comic contrast between this funereal church parade of apparel and the rich and glistening meadow, growing wild flowers everywhere. But, indeed, this comic contrast between the yellow blossoms and the black hats was but a symbol of the tragic contrast between the yellow blossoms and the black business. On his right was a

almighty

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

word-- "Please do not think me excessively abrupt; but I advise you to alter those plans, or if it is too late for that, to follow your agent with all the support you can get for him. Comrade Syme and I have had an experience which it would take more time to recount than we can afford, if we are to act on it. I will, however, relate the occurrence in detail, even at the risk of losing time, if you really feel that it is essential to the understanding of the problem we have to discuss." He was spinning out his sentences, making them intolerably long and lingering, in the hope of maddening the practical little Doctor into an explosion of impatience which might show his hand. But the little Doctor continued only to stare and smile, and the monologue was uphill work. Syme began to feel a new sickness and despair. The Doctor's smile and silence were not at all like the cataleptic stare and horrible silence which he had confronted in the Professor half an hour before. About the Professor's makeup and all his antics there was always something merely grotesque, like a gollywog. Syme remembered those wild woes of yesterday as one remembers being afraid of Bogy in childhood. But here was daylight; here was a healthy, square-shouldered man in tweeds, not odd save for the accident of his ugly spectacles, not glaring or grinning at all, but smiling steadily and not saying a word. The whole had a sense of unbearable reality. Under the increasing sunlight the colours of the Doctor's complexion, the pattern of his tweeds, grew and expanded outrageously, as such things grow too important in a realistic novel. But his smile was quite slight, the pose of his head polite; the only uncanny thing was his silence. "As I say," resumed the Professor, like a man toiling through heavy sand, "the incident that has occurred to us and has led us to ask for information about the Marquis, is one which you may think it better to have narrated; but as it came in the way of Comrade Syme rather than me--" His words he seemed to be dragging out like words in an anthem; but Syme, who was watching, saw his long fingers rattle quickly on the edge of the crazy table. He read the message, "You must go on. This devil has sucked me dry!" Syme plunged into the breach with that bravado of improvisation which always came to him when he was alarmed. "Yes, the thing really happened to me," he said hastily. "I had the good fortune to fall into conversation with a detective who took me, thanks to my hat, for a respectable person. Wishing to clinch my reputation for respectability, I took him and made him very drunk at the Savoy. Under this influence he became friendly, and told me in so many words that within a day or two they hope to arrest the Marquis in France. "So unless you or I can get on his track--" The Doctor was still smiling in the most friendly way, and his protected eyes were still impenetrable. The Professor signalled to Syme that he would resume his explanation, and he began again with the same elaborate calm. "Syme immediately brought this information to me, and we came here together to see what use you would be inclined to make of it. It seems to me unquestionably urgent that--" All this time Syme had been staring at the Doctor almost as steadily as the Doctor stared at the Professor, but quite without the smile. The nerves of both comrades-in-arms were near snapping under that strain of motionless amiability, when Syme suddenly leant forward and idly tapped the edge of the table. His message to his ally ran, "I have an intuition." The Professor, with scarcely a pause in his monologue, signalled back, "Then sit on it." Syme telegraphed, "It is quite extraordinary." The other answered, "Extraordinary rot!" Syme said, "I am a poet." The other retorted, "You are a dead man." Syme had gone quite red up to his yellow hair, and his eyes were burning feverishly. As he said he had an intuition, and it had risen to a sort of lightheaded certainty. Resuming his symbolic taps, he signalled to his friend, "You scarcely realise how poetic my intuition is. It has that sudden quality we sometimes feel in the coming of spring." He then studied the answer on his friend's fingers. The answer was, "Go to hell!" The Professor then resumed his merely verbal monologue addressed to the Doctor. "Perhaps I should rather say," said Syme on his fingers, "that it resembles that sudden smell of the sea which may be found in the heart of lush woods." His companion disdained to reply. "Or yet again," tapped Syme, "it is positive, as is the passionate red hair of a beautiful woman." The Professor was continuing his speech, but in the middle of it Syme decided to act. He leant across the table, and said in a voice that could not be neglected-- "Dr. Bull!" The Doctor's sleek and smiling head did not move, but they could have sworn that under his dark glasses his eyes darted towards Syme. "Dr. Bull," said Syme, in a voice peculiarly precise and courteous, "would you do me a small favour? Would you be so kind as to take off your spectacles?" The Professor swung round on his seat, and stared at Syme with a sort of frozen fury of astonishment. Syme, like a man who has thrown his life and fortune on the table, leaned forward with a fiery face. The Doctor did not move. For a few seconds there was a silence in which one could hear a pin drop, split once by the single hoot of a distant steamer on the Thames. Then Dr. Bull rose slowly, still smiling, and took off his spectacles. Syme sprang to his feet, stepping backwards a little, like a chemical lecturer from a successful explosion. His eyes were like stars, and for an instant he could only point without speaking. The Professor had also started to his feet, forgetful of his supposed paralysis. He leant on the back of the chair and stared doubtfully at Dr. Bull, as if the Doctor had been turned into a toad before his eyes. And indeed it was almost as great a transformation scene. The two detectives saw sitting in the chair before them a very boyish-looking young man, with very frank and happy hazel eyes, an open expression, cockney clothes like those of a city clerk, and an unquestionable breath about him of being very good and rather commonplace. The smile was still there, but it might have been the first smile of a baby. "I knew I was a poet," cried Syme in a sort of ecstasy. "I knew my intuition was as infallible as the Pope. It was the spectacles that did it! It was all the spectacles. Given those beastly black eyes, and all the rest of him his health and his jolly looks, made him a live devil among dead ones." "It certainly does make a queer difference," said the Professor shakily. "But as regards the project of Dr. Bull--" "Project be damned!" roared Syme, beside himself. "Look at him! Look at his face, look at his collar, look at his blessed boots! You don't suppose, do you, that that thing's an anarchist?" "Syme!" cried the other in an apprehensive agony. "Why, by God," said Syme, "I'll take the risk of that myself! Dr. Bull, I am a police officer. There's my card," and he flung down the blue card upon the table. The Professor still feared that all was lost; but he was loyal. He pulled out his own official card and put it beside his friend's. Then the third man burst out laughing, and for the first time that morning they heard his voice. "I'm awfully glad you chaps have come so early," he said, with a sort of schoolboy flippancy, "for we can all start for France together. Yes, I'm in the force right enough," and he flicked a blue card towards them lightly as a matter of form. Clapping a brisk bowler on his head and resuming his goblin glasses, the Doctor moved so quickly towards the door, that the others instinctively followed him. Syme seemed a little distrait, and as he passed under the doorway he suddenly struck his stick on the stone passage so that it rang. "But Lord God Almighty," he cried out, "if this is all right, there were more damned detectives than there were damned dynamiters at the damned Council!" "We might have fought easily," said Bull; "we were four against three." The Professor was descending the stairs, but his voice came up from below. "No," said the voice, "we were not four against three--we were not so lucky. We were four against One." The others went down the stairs in silence. The young man called Bull, with an innocent courtesy characteristic of him, insisted on going last until they reached the street; but there his own robust rapidity asserted itself unconsciously, and he walked quickly on ahead towards a railway inquiry office, talking to the others over his shoulder. "It is jolly to get some pals," he said. "I've been half dead with the jumps, being quite alone. I nearly flung my arms round Gogol and embraced him, which would have been imprudent. I hope you won't despise me for having been in a blue funk." "All the blue devils in blue hell," said Syme, "contributed to my blue funk! But the worst devil was you and your infernal goggles." The young man laughed delightedly. "Wasn't it a rag?" he said. "Such a simple idea--not my own. I haven't got the brains. You see, I wanted to go into the detective service, especially the anti-dynamite business. But for that purpose they wanted someone to dress up as a dynamiter; and they all swore by blazes that I could never look like a dynamiter. They said my very walk was respectable, and that seen from behind I looked like the British Constitution. They said I looked too healthy and too optimistic, and too reliable and benevolent; they called me all sorts of names at Scotland Yard. They said that if I had been a criminal, I might have made my fortune by looking so like an honest man; but as I had the misfortune to be an honest man, there was not even the remotest chance of my assisting them by ever looking like a criminal. But at last I was brought before some old josser who was high up in the force, and who seemed to have no end of a head on his shoulders. And there the others all talked hopelessly. One asked whether a bushy beard would hide my nice smile; another said that if they blacked my face I might look like a negro anarchist; but this old chap chipped in with a most extraordinary remark. 'A pair of smoked spectacles will do it,' he said positively. 'Look at him now; he looks like an angelic office boy. Put him on a pair of smoked spectacles, and children will scream at the sight of him.' And so it was, by George! When once my eyes were covered, all the rest, smile and big shoulders and short hair, made me look a perfect little devil. As I say, it was simple enough when it was done, like miracles; but that wasn't the really miraculous part of it. There was one really staggering thing about the business, and my head still turns at it." "What was that?" asked Syme. "I'll tell you," answered the man in spectacles. "This big pot in the police who sized me up so that he knew how the goggles would go with my hair and socks--by God, he never saw me at all!" Syme's eyes suddenly flashed on him. "How was that?" he asked. "I thought you talked to him." "So I did," said Bull brightly; "but we talked in a pitch-dark room like a coalcellar. There, you would never have guessed that." "I could not have conceived it," said Syme gravely. "It is indeed a new idea," said the Professor. Their new ally was in practical matters a whirlwind. At the inquiry office he asked with businesslike brevity about the trains for Dover. Having got his information, he bundled the company into a cab, and put them and himself inside a railway carriage before they had properly realised the breathless process. They were already on the Calais boat before conversation flowed freely. "I had already arranged," he explained, "to go to France for my lunch; but I am delighted to have someone to lunch with me. You see, I had to send that beast, the Marquis, over with his bomb, because the President had his eye on me, though God knows how. I'll tell you the story some day. It was perfectly choking. Whenever I tried to slip out of it I saw the President somewhere, smiling out of the bow-window of a club, or taking off his hat to me from the top of an omnibus. I tell you, you can say what you like, that fellow sold himself to the devil; he can be in six places at once." "So you sent the Marquis off, I understand," asked the Professor. "Was it long ago? Shall we be in time to catch him?" "Yes," answered the new guide, "I've timed it all. He'll still be at Calais when we arrive." "But when we do catch him at Calais," said the Professor, "what are we going to do?" At this question the countenance of Dr. Bull fell for the first time. He reflected a little, and then said-- "Theoretically, I suppose, we ought to call the police." "Not I," said Syme. "Theoretically I ought to drown myself first. I promised a poor fellow, who was a real modern pessimist, on my word of honour not to tell the police. I'm no hand at casuistry, but I can't break my word to a modern pessimist. It's like breaking one's word to a child." "I'm in the same boat," said the Professor. "I tried to tell the police and I couldn't, because of some silly oath I took. You see, when I was an actor I was a sort of all-round beast. Perjury or treason is the only crime I haven't committed. If I did that I shouldn't know the difference between right and wrong." "I've been through all that," said Dr. Bull, "and I've made up my mind. I gave my promise to the Secretary--you know him, man who smiles upside down. My friends, that man is the most utterly unhappy man that was ever human. It may be his digestion, or his conscience, or his nerves, or his philosophy of the universe, but he's damned, he's in hell! Well, I can't turn on a man like that, and hunt him down. It's like whipping a leper. I may be mad, but that's how I feel; and there's jolly well the end of it." "I don't think you're mad," said Syme. "I knew you would decide like that when first you--" "Eh?" said Dr. Bull. "When first you took off your spectacles." Dr. Bull smiled a little, and strolled across the deck to look at the sunlit sea. Then he strolled back again, kicking his heels carelessly, and a companionable silence fell between the three men. "Well," said Syme, "it seems that we have all the same kind of morality or immorality, so we had better face the fact that comes of it." "Yes," assented the Professor, "you're quite right; and we must hurry up, for I can see the Grey Nose standing out from France." "The fact that comes of it," said Syme seriously, "is this, that we three are alone on this planet. Gogol has gone, God knows where; perhaps the President has smashed him like a fly. On the Council we are three men against three, like the Romans who held the bridge. But we are worse off than that, first because they can appeal to their organization and we cannot appeal to ours, and second because--" "Because one of those other three men," said the Professor, "is not a man." Syme nodded and was silent for a second or two, then he said-- "My idea is this. We must do something to keep the Marquis in Calais till tomorrow midday. I have turned over twenty schemes in my head. We cannot denounce him as a dynamiter; that is agreed. We cannot get him detained on some trivial charge, for we should have to appear; he knows us, and he would smell a rat. We cannot pretend to keep him on anarchist business; he might swallow much in that way, but not the notion of stopping in Calais while the Czar went safely through Paris. We might try to kidnap him, and lock him up ourselves; but he is a well-known man here. He has a whole bodyguard of friends; he is very strong and brave, and the event is doubtful. The only thing I can see to do is actually to take advantage of the very things that are in the Marquis's favour. I am going to profit by the fact that he is a highly respected nobleman. I am going to profit by the fact that he has many friends and moves in the best society." "What the devil are you talking about?" asked the Professor. "The Symes are first mentioned in the fourteenth century," said Syme; "but there is a tradition that one of them rode behind Bruce at Bannockburn. Since 1350 the tree is quite clear." "He's gone off his head," said the little Doctor, staring. "Our bearings," continued Syme calmly, "are 'argent a chevron gules charged with three cross crosslets of the field.' The motto varies." The Professor seized Syme roughly by the waistcoat. "We are just inshore," he said. "Are you seasick or joking in the wrong place?" "My remarks are almost painfully practical," answered Syme, in an unhurried manner. "The house of St. Eustache also is very ancient. The Marquis cannot deny that he is a gentleman. He cannot deny that I am a gentleman. And in order to put the matter of my social position quite beyond a doubt, I propose at the earliest opportunity to knock his hat off. But here we are in the harbour." They went on shore under the strong sun in a sort of daze. Syme, who had now taken the lead as Bull had taken it in London, led them along a kind of marine parade until he came to some cafes, embowered in a bulk of greenery and overlooking the sea. As he went before them his step was slightly swaggering, and he swung his stick like a sword. He was making apparently for the extreme end of the line of cafes, but he stopped abruptly. With a sharp gesture he motioned them to silence, but he pointed with one gloved finger to a cafe table under a bank of flowering foliage at which sat the Marquis de St. Eustache, his teeth shining in his thick, black beard, and his bold, brown face shadowed by a light yellow straw hat and outlined against the violet sea. CHAPTER X. THE DUEL SYME sat down at a cafe table with his companions, his blue eyes sparkling like the bright sea below, and ordered a bottle of Saumur with a pleased impatience. He was for some reason in a condition of curious hilarity. His spirits were already unnaturally high; they rose as the Saumur sank, and in half an hour his talk was a torrent of nonsense. He professed to be making out a plan of the conversation which was going to ensue between himself and the deadly Marquis. He jotted it down wildly with a pencil. It was arranged like a printed catechism, with questions and answers, and was delivered with an extraordinary rapidity of utterance. "I shall approach. Before taking off his hat, I shall take off my own. I shall say, 'The Marquis de Saint Eustache, I believe.' He will say, 'The celebrated Mr. Syme, I presume.' He will say in the most exquisite French, 'How are you?' I shall reply in the most exquisite Cockney, 'Oh, just the Syme--'" "Oh, shut it," said the man in spectacles. "Pull yourself together, and chuck away that bit of paper. What are you really going to do?" "But it was a lovely catechism," said Syme pathetically. "Do let me read it you. It has only forty-three questions and answers, and some of the Marquis's answers are wonderfully witty. I like to be just to my enemy." "But what's the good of it all?" asked Dr. Bull in exasperation. "It leads up to my challenge, don't you see," said Syme, beaming. "When the Marquis has given the thirty-ninth reply, which runs--" "Has it by any chance occurred to you," asked the Professor, with a ponderous simplicity, "that the Marquis may not say all the forty-three things you have put down for him? In that case, I understand, your own epigrams may appear somewhat more forced." Syme struck the table with a radiant face. "Why, how true that is," he said, "and I never thought of it. Sir, you have an intellect beyond the common. You will make a name." "Oh, you're as drunk as an owl!" said the Doctor. "It only remains," continued Syme quite unperturbed, "to adopt some other method of breaking the ice (if I may so express it) between myself and the man I wish to kill. And since the course of a dialogue cannot be predicted by one of its parties alone (as you have pointed out with such recondite acumen), the only thing to be done, I suppose, is for the one party, as far as possible, to do all the dialogue by himself. And so I will, by George!" And he stood up suddenly, his yellow hair blowing in the slight sea breeze. A band was playing in a cafe chantant hidden somewhere among the trees, and a woman had just stopped singing. On Syme's heated head the bray of the brass band seemed like the jar and jingle of that barrel-organ in Leicester Square, to the tune of which he had once stood up to die. He looked across to the little table where the Marquis sat. The man had two companions now, solemn Frenchmen in frock-coats and silk hats, one of them with the red rosette of the Legion of Honour, evidently people of a solid social position. Besides these black, cylindrical costumes, the Marquis, in his loose straw hat and light spring clothes, looked Bohemian and even barbaric; but he looked the Marquis. Indeed, one might say that he looked the king, with his animal elegance, his scornful eyes, and his proud head lifted against the purple sea. But he was no Christian king, at any rate; he was, rather, some swarthy despot, half Greek, half Asiatic, who in the days when slavery seemed natural looked down on the Mediterranean, on his galley and his groaning slaves. Just so, Syme thought, would the brown-gold face of such a tyrant have shown against the dark green olives and the burning blue. "Are you going to address the meeting?" asked the Professor peevishly, seeing that Syme still stood up without moving. Syme drained his last glass of sparkling wine. "I am," he said, pointing across to the Marquis and his companions, "that meeting. That meeting displeases me. I am going to pull that meeting's great ugly, mahogany-coloured nose." He stepped across swiftly, if not quite steadily. The Marquis, seeing him, arched his black Assyrian eyebrows in surprise, but smiled politely. "You are Mr. Syme, I think," he said. Syme bowed. "And you are the Marquis de Saint Eustache," he said gracefully. "Permit me to pull your nose." He leant over to do so, but the Marquis started backwards, upsetting his chair, and the two men in top hats held Syme back by the shoulders. "This man has insulted me!" said Syme, with gestures of explanation. "Insulted you?" cried the gentleman with the red rosette, "when?" "Oh, just now," said Syme recklessly. "He insulted my mother." "Insulted your mother!" exclaimed the gentleman incredulously. "Well, anyhow," said Syme, conceding a point, "my aunt." "But how can the Marquis have insulted your aunt just now?" said the second gentleman with some legitimate wonder. "He has been sitting here all the time." "Ah, it was what he said!" said Syme darkly. "I said nothing at all," said the Marquis, "except something about the band. I only said that I liked Wagner played well." "It was an allusion to my family," said Syme firmly. "My aunt played Wagner badly. It was a painful subject. We are always being insulted about it." "This seems most extraordinary," said the gentleman who was decore, looking doubtfully at the Marquis. "Oh, I assure you," said Syme earnestly, "the whole of your conversation was simply packed with sinister allusions to my aunt's weaknesses." "This is nonsense!" said the second gentleman. "I for one have said nothing for half an hour except that I liked the singing of that girl with black hair." "Well, there you are again!" said Syme indignantly. "My aunt's was red." "It seems to me," said the other, "that you are simply seeking a pretext to insult the Marquis." "By George!" said Syme, facing round and looking at him, "what a clever chap you are!" The Marquis started up with eyes flaming like a tiger's. "Seeking a quarrel with me!" he cried. "Seeking a fight with me! By God! there was never a man who had to seek long. These gentlemen will perhaps act for me. There are still four hours of daylight. Let us fight this evening." Syme bowed with a quite beautiful graciousness. "Marquis," he said, "your action is worthy of your fame and blood. Permit me to consult for a moment with the gentlemen in whose hands I shall place myself." In three long strides he rejoined his companions, and they, who had seen his champagne-inspired attack and listened to his idiotic explanations, were quite startled at the look of him. For now that he came back to them he was quite sober, a little pale, and he spoke in a low voice of passionate practicality. "I have done it," he said hoarsely. "I have fixed a fight on the beast. But look here, and listen carefully. There is no time for talk. You are my seconds, and everything must come from you. Now you must insist, and insist absolutely, on the duel coming off after seven tomorrow, so as to give me the chance of preventing him from catching the 7.45 for Paris. If he misses that he misses his crime. He can't refuse to meet you on such a small point of time and place. But this is what he will do. He will choose a field somewhere near a wayside station, where he can pick up the train. He is a very good swordsman, and he will trust to killing me in time to catch it. But I can fence well too, and I think I can keep him in play, at any rate, until the train is lost. Then perhaps he may kill me to console his feelings. You understand? Very well then, let me introduce you to some charming friends of mine," and leading them quickly across the parade, he presented them to the Marquis's seconds by two very aristocratic names of which they had not previously heard. Syme was subject to spasms of singular common sense, not otherwise a part of his character. They were (as he said of his impulse about the spectacles) poetic intuitions, and they sometimes rose to the exaltation of prophecy. He had correctly calculated in this case the policy of his opponent. When the Marquis was informed by his seconds that Syme could only fight in the morning, he must fully have realised that an obstacle had suddenly arisen between him and his bomb-throwing business in the capital. Naturally he could not explain this objection to his friends, so he chose the course which Syme had predicted. He induced his seconds to settle on a small meadow not far from the railway, and he trusted to the fatality of the first engagement. When he came down very coolly to the field of honour, no one could have guessed that he had any anxiety about a journey; his hands were in his pockets, his straw hat on the back of his head, his handsome face brazen in the sun. But it might have struck a stranger as odd that there appeared in his train, not only his seconds carrying the sword-case, but two of his servants carrying a portmanteau and a luncheon basket. Early as was the hour, the sun soaked everything in warmth, and Syme was vaguely surprised to see so many spring flowers burning gold and silver in the tall grass in which the whole company stood almost knee-deep. With the exception of the Marquis, all the men were in sombre and solemn morning-dress, with hats like black chimney-pots; the little Doctor especially, with the addition of his black spectacles, looked like an undertaker in a farce. Syme could not help feeling a comic contrast between this funereal church parade of apparel and the rich and glistening meadow, growing wild flowers everywhere. But, indeed, this comic contrast between the yellow blossoms and the black hats was but a symbol of the tragic contrast between the yellow blossoms and the black business. On his right was a

effect

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

word-- "Please do not think me excessively abrupt; but I advise you to alter those plans, or if it is too late for that, to follow your agent with all the support you can get for him. Comrade Syme and I have had an experience which it would take more time to recount than we can afford, if we are to act on it. I will, however, relate the occurrence in detail, even at the risk of losing time, if you really feel that it is essential to the understanding of the problem we have to discuss." He was spinning out his sentences, making them intolerably long and lingering, in the hope of maddening the practical little Doctor into an explosion of impatience which might show his hand. But the little Doctor continued only to stare and smile, and the monologue was uphill work. Syme began to feel a new sickness and despair. The Doctor's smile and silence were not at all like the cataleptic stare and horrible silence which he had confronted in the Professor half an hour before. About the Professor's makeup and all his antics there was always something merely grotesque, like a gollywog. Syme remembered those wild woes of yesterday as one remembers being afraid of Bogy in childhood. But here was daylight; here was a healthy, square-shouldered man in tweeds, not odd save for the accident of his ugly spectacles, not glaring or grinning at all, but smiling steadily and not saying a word. The whole had a sense of unbearable reality. Under the increasing sunlight the colours of the Doctor's complexion, the pattern of his tweeds, grew and expanded outrageously, as such things grow too important in a realistic novel. But his smile was quite slight, the pose of his head polite; the only uncanny thing was his silence. "As I say," resumed the Professor, like a man toiling through heavy sand, "the incident that has occurred to us and has led us to ask for information about the Marquis, is one which you may think it better to have narrated; but as it came in the way of Comrade Syme rather than me--" His words he seemed to be dragging out like words in an anthem; but Syme, who was watching, saw his long fingers rattle quickly on the edge of the crazy table. He read the message, "You must go on. This devil has sucked me dry!" Syme plunged into the breach with that bravado of improvisation which always came to him when he was alarmed. "Yes, the thing really happened to me," he said hastily. "I had the good fortune to fall into conversation with a detective who took me, thanks to my hat, for a respectable person. Wishing to clinch my reputation for respectability, I took him and made him very drunk at the Savoy. Under this influence he became friendly, and told me in so many words that within a day or two they hope to arrest the Marquis in France. "So unless you or I can get on his track--" The Doctor was still smiling in the most friendly way, and his protected eyes were still impenetrable. The Professor signalled to Syme that he would resume his explanation, and he began again with the same elaborate calm. "Syme immediately brought this information to me, and we came here together to see what use you would be inclined to make of it. It seems to me unquestionably urgent that--" All this time Syme had been staring at the Doctor almost as steadily as the Doctor stared at the Professor, but quite without the smile. The nerves of both comrades-in-arms were near snapping under that strain of motionless amiability, when Syme suddenly leant forward and idly tapped the edge of the table. His message to his ally ran, "I have an intuition." The Professor, with scarcely a pause in his monologue, signalled back, "Then sit on it." Syme telegraphed, "It is quite extraordinary." The other answered, "Extraordinary rot!" Syme said, "I am a poet." The other retorted, "You are a dead man." Syme had gone quite red up to his yellow hair, and his eyes were burning feverishly. As he said he had an intuition, and it had risen to a sort of lightheaded certainty. Resuming his symbolic taps, he signalled to his friend, "You scarcely realise how poetic my intuition is. It has that sudden quality we sometimes feel in the coming of spring." He then studied the answer on his friend's fingers. The answer was, "Go to hell!" The Professor then resumed his merely verbal monologue addressed to the Doctor. "Perhaps I should rather say," said Syme on his fingers, "that it resembles that sudden smell of the sea which may be found in the heart of lush woods." His companion disdained to reply. "Or yet again," tapped Syme, "it is positive, as is the passionate red hair of a beautiful woman." The Professor was continuing his speech, but in the middle of it Syme decided to act. He leant across the table, and said in a voice that could not be neglected-- "Dr. Bull!" The Doctor's sleek and smiling head did not move, but they could have sworn that under his dark glasses his eyes darted towards Syme. "Dr. Bull," said Syme, in a voice peculiarly precise and courteous, "would you do me a small favour? Would you be so kind as to take off your spectacles?" The Professor swung round on his seat, and stared at Syme with a sort of frozen fury of astonishment. Syme, like a man who has thrown his life and fortune on the table, leaned forward with a fiery face. The Doctor did not move. For a few seconds there was a silence in which one could hear a pin drop, split once by the single hoot of a distant steamer on the Thames. Then Dr. Bull rose slowly, still smiling, and took off his spectacles. Syme sprang to his feet, stepping backwards a little, like a chemical lecturer from a successful explosion. His eyes were like stars, and for an instant he could only point without speaking. The Professor had also started to his feet, forgetful of his supposed paralysis. He leant on the back of the chair and stared doubtfully at Dr. Bull, as if the Doctor had been turned into a toad before his eyes. And indeed it was almost as great a transformation scene. The two detectives saw sitting in the chair before them a very boyish-looking young man, with very frank and happy hazel eyes, an open expression, cockney clothes like those of a city clerk, and an unquestionable breath about him of being very good and rather commonplace. The smile was still there, but it might have been the first smile of a baby. "I knew I was a poet," cried Syme in a sort of ecstasy. "I knew my intuition was as infallible as the Pope. It was the spectacles that did it! It was all the spectacles. Given those beastly black eyes, and all the rest of him his health and his jolly looks, made him a live devil among dead ones." "It certainly does make a queer difference," said the Professor shakily. "But as regards the project of Dr. Bull--" "Project be damned!" roared Syme, beside himself. "Look at him! Look at his face, look at his collar, look at his blessed boots! You don't suppose, do you, that that thing's an anarchist?" "Syme!" cried the other in an apprehensive agony. "Why, by God," said Syme, "I'll take the risk of that myself! Dr. Bull, I am a police officer. There's my card," and he flung down the blue card upon the table. The Professor still feared that all was lost; but he was loyal. He pulled out his own official card and put it beside his friend's. Then the third man burst out laughing, and for the first time that morning they heard his voice. "I'm awfully glad you chaps have come so early," he said, with a sort of schoolboy flippancy, "for we can all start for France together. Yes, I'm in the force right enough," and he flicked a blue card towards them lightly as a matter of form. Clapping a brisk bowler on his head and resuming his goblin glasses, the Doctor moved so quickly towards the door, that the others instinctively followed him. Syme seemed a little distrait, and as he passed under the doorway he suddenly struck his stick on the stone passage so that it rang. "But Lord God Almighty," he cried out, "if this is all right, there were more damned detectives than there were damned dynamiters at the damned Council!" "We might have fought easily," said Bull; "we were four against three." The Professor was descending the stairs, but his voice came up from below. "No," said the voice, "we were not four against three--we were not so lucky. We were four against One." The others went down the stairs in silence. The young man called Bull, with an innocent courtesy characteristic of him, insisted on going last until they reached the street; but there his own robust rapidity asserted itself unconsciously, and he walked quickly on ahead towards a railway inquiry office, talking to the others over his shoulder. "It is jolly to get some pals," he said. "I've been half dead with the jumps, being quite alone. I nearly flung my arms round Gogol and embraced him, which would have been imprudent. I hope you won't despise me for having been in a blue funk." "All the blue devils in blue hell," said Syme, "contributed to my blue funk! But the worst devil was you and your infernal goggles." The young man laughed delightedly. "Wasn't it a rag?" he said. "Such a simple idea--not my own. I haven't got the brains. You see, I wanted to go into the detective service, especially the anti-dynamite business. But for that purpose they wanted someone to dress up as a dynamiter; and they all swore by blazes that I could never look like a dynamiter. They said my very walk was respectable, and that seen from behind I looked like the British Constitution. They said I looked too healthy and too optimistic, and too reliable and benevolent; they called me all sorts of names at Scotland Yard. They said that if I had been a criminal, I might have made my fortune by looking so like an honest man; but as I had the misfortune to be an honest man, there was not even the remotest chance of my assisting them by ever looking like a criminal. But at last I was brought before some old josser who was high up in the force, and who seemed to have no end of a head on his shoulders. And there the others all talked hopelessly. One asked whether a bushy beard would hide my nice smile; another said that if they blacked my face I might look like a negro anarchist; but this old chap chipped in with a most extraordinary remark. 'A pair of smoked spectacles will do it,' he said positively. 'Look at him now; he looks like an angelic office boy. Put him on a pair of smoked spectacles, and children will scream at the sight of him.' And so it was, by George! When once my eyes were covered, all the rest, smile and big shoulders and short hair, made me look a perfect little devil. As I say, it was simple enough when it was done, like miracles; but that wasn't the really miraculous part of it. There was one really staggering thing about the business, and my head still turns at it." "What was that?" asked Syme. "I'll tell you," answered the man in spectacles. "This big pot in the police who sized me up so that he knew how the goggles would go with my hair and socks--by God, he never saw me at all!" Syme's eyes suddenly flashed on him. "How was that?" he asked. "I thought you talked to him." "So I did," said Bull brightly; "but we talked in a pitch-dark room like a coalcellar. There, you would never have guessed that." "I could not have conceived it," said Syme gravely. "It is indeed a new idea," said the Professor. Their new ally was in practical matters a whirlwind. At the inquiry office he asked with businesslike brevity about the trains for Dover. Having got his information, he bundled the company into a cab, and put them and himself inside a railway carriage before they had properly realised the breathless process. They were already on the Calais boat before conversation flowed freely. "I had already arranged," he explained, "to go to France for my lunch; but I am delighted to have someone to lunch with me. You see, I had to send that beast, the Marquis, over with his bomb, because the President had his eye on me, though God knows how. I'll tell you the story some day. It was perfectly choking. Whenever I tried to slip out of it I saw the President somewhere, smiling out of the bow-window of a club, or taking off his hat to me from the top of an omnibus. I tell you, you can say what you like, that fellow sold himself to the devil; he can be in six places at once." "So you sent the Marquis off, I understand," asked the Professor. "Was it long ago? Shall we be in time to catch him?" "Yes," answered the new guide, "I've timed it all. He'll still be at Calais when we arrive." "But when we do catch him at Calais," said the Professor, "what are we going to do?" At this question the countenance of Dr. Bull fell for the first time. He reflected a little, and then said-- "Theoretically, I suppose, we ought to call the police." "Not I," said Syme. "Theoretically I ought to drown myself first. I promised a poor fellow, who was a real modern pessimist, on my word of honour not to tell the police. I'm no hand at casuistry, but I can't break my word to a modern pessimist. It's like breaking one's word to a child." "I'm in the same boat," said the Professor. "I tried to tell the police and I couldn't, because of some silly oath I took. You see, when I was an actor I was a sort of all-round beast. Perjury or treason is the only crime I haven't committed. If I did that I shouldn't know the difference between right and wrong." "I've been through all that," said Dr. Bull, "and I've made up my mind. I gave my promise to the Secretary--you know him, man who smiles upside down. My friends, that man is the most utterly unhappy man that was ever human. It may be his digestion, or his conscience, or his nerves, or his philosophy of the universe, but he's damned, he's in hell! Well, I can't turn on a man like that, and hunt him down. It's like whipping a leper. I may be mad, but that's how I feel; and there's jolly well the end of it." "I don't think you're mad," said Syme. "I knew you would decide like that when first you--" "Eh?" said Dr. Bull. "When first you took off your spectacles." Dr. Bull smiled a little, and strolled across the deck to look at the sunlit sea. Then he strolled back again, kicking his heels carelessly, and a companionable silence fell between the three men. "Well," said Syme, "it seems that we have all the same kind of morality or immorality, so we had better face the fact that comes of it." "Yes," assented the Professor, "you're quite right; and we must hurry up, for I can see the Grey Nose standing out from France." "The fact that comes of it," said Syme seriously, "is this, that we three are alone on this planet. Gogol has gone, God knows where; perhaps the President has smashed him like a fly. On the Council we are three men against three, like the Romans who held the bridge. But we are worse off than that, first because they can appeal to their organization and we cannot appeal to ours, and second because--" "Because one of those other three men," said the Professor, "is not a man." Syme nodded and was silent for a second or two, then he said-- "My idea is this. We must do something to keep the Marquis in Calais till tomorrow midday. I have turned over twenty schemes in my head. We cannot denounce him as a dynamiter; that is agreed. We cannot get him detained on some trivial charge, for we should have to appear; he knows us, and he would smell a rat. We cannot pretend to keep him on anarchist business; he might swallow much in that way, but not the notion of stopping in Calais while the Czar went safely through Paris. We might try to kidnap him, and lock him up ourselves; but he is a well-known man here. He has a whole bodyguard of friends; he is very strong and brave, and the event is doubtful. The only thing I can see to do is actually to take advantage of the very things that are in the Marquis's favour. I am going to profit by the fact that he is a highly respected nobleman. I am going to profit by the fact that he has many friends and moves in the best society." "What the devil are you talking about?" asked the Professor. "The Symes are first mentioned in the fourteenth century," said Syme; "but there is a tradition that one of them rode behind Bruce at Bannockburn. Since 1350 the tree is quite clear." "He's gone off his head," said the little Doctor, staring. "Our bearings," continued Syme calmly, "are 'argent a chevron gules charged with three cross crosslets of the field.' The motto varies." The Professor seized Syme roughly by the waistcoat. "We are just inshore," he said. "Are you seasick or joking in the wrong place?" "My remarks are almost painfully practical," answered Syme, in an unhurried manner. "The house of St. Eustache also is very ancient. The Marquis cannot deny that he is a gentleman. He cannot deny that I am a gentleman. And in order to put the matter of my social position quite beyond a doubt, I propose at the earliest opportunity to knock his hat off. But here we are in the harbour." They went on shore under the strong sun in a sort of daze. Syme, who had now taken the lead as Bull had taken it in London, led them along a kind of marine parade until he came to some cafes, embowered in a bulk of greenery and overlooking the sea. As he went before them his step was slightly swaggering, and he swung his stick like a sword. He was making apparently for the extreme end of the line of cafes, but he stopped abruptly. With a sharp gesture he motioned them to silence, but he pointed with one gloved finger to a cafe table under a bank of flowering foliage at which sat the Marquis de St. Eustache, his teeth shining in his thick, black beard, and his bold, brown face shadowed by a light yellow straw hat and outlined against the violet sea. CHAPTER X. THE DUEL SYME sat down at a cafe table with his companions, his blue eyes sparkling like the bright sea below, and ordered a bottle of Saumur with a pleased impatience. He was for some reason in a condition of curious hilarity. His spirits were already unnaturally high; they rose as the Saumur sank, and in half an hour his talk was a torrent of nonsense. He professed to be making out a plan of the conversation which was going to ensue between himself and the deadly Marquis. He jotted it down wildly with a pencil. It was arranged like a printed catechism, with questions and answers, and was delivered with an extraordinary rapidity of utterance. "I shall approach. Before taking off his hat, I shall take off my own. I shall say, 'The Marquis de Saint Eustache, I believe.' He will say, 'The celebrated Mr. Syme, I presume.' He will say in the most exquisite French, 'How are you?' I shall reply in the most exquisite Cockney, 'Oh, just the Syme--'" "Oh, shut it," said the man in spectacles. "Pull yourself together, and chuck away that bit of paper. What are you really going to do?" "But it was a lovely catechism," said Syme pathetically. "Do let me read it you. It has only forty-three questions and answers, and some of the Marquis's answers are wonderfully witty. I like to be just to my enemy." "But what's the good of it all?" asked Dr. Bull in exasperation. "It leads up to my challenge, don't you see," said Syme, beaming. "When the Marquis has given the thirty-ninth reply, which runs--" "Has it by any chance occurred to you," asked the Professor, with a ponderous simplicity, "that the Marquis may not say all the forty-three things you have put down for him? In that case, I understand, your own epigrams may appear somewhat more forced." Syme struck the table with a radiant face. "Why, how true that is," he said, "and I never thought of it. Sir, you have an intellect beyond the common. You will make a name." "Oh, you're as drunk as an owl!" said the Doctor. "It only remains," continued Syme quite unperturbed, "to adopt some other method of breaking the ice (if I may so express it) between myself and the man I wish to kill. And since the course of a dialogue cannot be predicted by one of its parties alone (as you have pointed out with such recondite acumen), the only thing to be done, I suppose, is for the one party, as far as possible, to do all the dialogue by himself. And so I will, by George!" And he stood up suddenly, his yellow hair blowing in the slight sea breeze. A band was playing in a cafe chantant hidden somewhere among the trees, and a woman had just stopped singing. On Syme's heated head the bray of the brass band seemed like the jar and jingle of that barrel-organ in Leicester Square, to the tune of which he had once stood up to die. He looked across to the little table where the Marquis sat. The man had two companions now, solemn Frenchmen in frock-coats and silk hats, one of them with the red rosette of the Legion of Honour, evidently people of a solid social position. Besides these black, cylindrical costumes, the Marquis, in his loose straw hat and light spring clothes, looked Bohemian and even barbaric; but he looked the Marquis. Indeed, one might say that he looked the king, with his animal elegance, his scornful eyes, and his proud head lifted against the purple sea. But he was no Christian king, at any rate; he was, rather, some swarthy despot, half Greek, half Asiatic, who in the days when slavery seemed natural looked down on the Mediterranean, on his galley and his groaning slaves. Just so, Syme thought, would the brown-gold face of such a tyrant have shown against the dark green olives and the burning blue. "Are you going to address the meeting?" asked the Professor peevishly, seeing that Syme still stood up without moving. Syme drained his last glass of sparkling wine. "I am," he said, pointing across to the Marquis and his companions, "that meeting. That meeting displeases me. I am going to pull that meeting's great ugly, mahogany-coloured nose." He stepped across swiftly, if not quite steadily. The Marquis, seeing him, arched his black Assyrian eyebrows in surprise, but smiled politely. "You are Mr. Syme, I think," he said. Syme bowed. "And you are the Marquis de Saint Eustache," he said gracefully. "Permit me to pull your nose." He leant over to do so, but the Marquis started backwards, upsetting his chair, and the two men in top hats held Syme back by the shoulders. "This man has insulted me!" said Syme, with gestures of explanation. "Insulted you?" cried the gentleman with the red rosette, "when?" "Oh, just now," said Syme recklessly. "He insulted my mother." "Insulted your mother!" exclaimed the gentleman incredulously. "Well, anyhow," said Syme, conceding a point, "my aunt." "But how can the Marquis have insulted your aunt just now?" said the second gentleman with some legitimate wonder. "He has been sitting here all the time." "Ah, it was what he said!" said Syme darkly. "I said nothing at all," said the Marquis, "except something about the band. I only said that I liked Wagner played well." "It was an allusion to my family," said Syme firmly. "My aunt played Wagner badly. It was a painful subject. We are always being insulted about it." "This seems most extraordinary," said the gentleman who was decore, looking doubtfully at the Marquis. "Oh, I assure you," said Syme earnestly, "the whole of your conversation was simply packed with sinister allusions to my aunt's weaknesses." "This is nonsense!" said the second gentleman. "I for one have said nothing for half an hour except that I liked the singing of that girl with black hair." "Well, there you are again!" said Syme indignantly. "My aunt's was red." "It seems to me," said the other, "that you are simply seeking a pretext to insult the Marquis." "By George!" said Syme, facing round and looking at him, "what a clever chap you are!" The Marquis started up with eyes flaming like a tiger's. "Seeking a quarrel with me!" he cried. "Seeking a fight with me! By God! there was never a man who had to seek long. These gentlemen will perhaps act for me. There are still four hours of daylight. Let us fight this evening." Syme bowed with a quite beautiful graciousness. "Marquis," he said, "your action is worthy of your fame and blood. Permit me to consult for a moment with the gentlemen in whose hands I shall place myself." In three long strides he rejoined his companions, and they, who had seen his champagne-inspired attack and listened to his idiotic explanations, were quite startled at the look of him. For now that he came back to them he was quite sober, a little pale, and he spoke in a low voice of passionate practicality. "I have done it," he said hoarsely. "I have fixed a fight on the beast. But look here, and listen carefully. There is no time for talk. You are my seconds, and everything must come from you. Now you must insist, and insist absolutely, on the duel coming off after seven tomorrow, so as to give me the chance of preventing him from catching the 7.45 for Paris. If he misses that he misses his crime. He can't refuse to meet you on such a small point of time and place. But this is what he will do. He will choose a field somewhere near a wayside station, where he can pick up the train. He is a very good swordsman, and he will trust to killing me in time to catch it. But I can fence well too, and I think I can keep him in play, at any rate, until the train is lost. Then perhaps he may kill me to console his feelings. You understand? Very well then, let me introduce you to some charming friends of mine," and leading them quickly across the parade, he presented them to the Marquis's seconds by two very aristocratic names of which they had not previously heard. Syme was subject to spasms of singular common sense, not otherwise a part of his character. They were (as he said of his impulse about the spectacles) poetic intuitions, and they sometimes rose to the exaltation of prophecy. He had correctly calculated in this case the policy of his opponent. When the Marquis was informed by his seconds that Syme could only fight in the morning, he must fully have realised that an obstacle had suddenly arisen between him and his bomb-throwing business in the capital. Naturally he could not explain this objection to his friends, so he chose the course which Syme had predicted. He induced his seconds to settle on a small meadow not far from the railway, and he trusted to the fatality of the first engagement. When he came down very coolly to the field of honour, no one could have guessed that he had any anxiety about a journey; his hands were in his pockets, his straw hat on the back of his head, his handsome face brazen in the sun. But it might have struck a stranger as odd that there appeared in his train, not only his seconds carrying the sword-case, but two of his servants carrying a portmanteau and a luncheon basket. Early as was the hour, the sun soaked everything in warmth, and Syme was vaguely surprised to see so many spring flowers burning gold and silver in the tall grass in which the whole company stood almost knee-deep. With the exception of the Marquis, all the men were in sombre and solemn morning-dress, with hats like black chimney-pots; the little Doctor especially, with the addition of his black spectacles, looked like an undertaker in a farce. Syme could not help feeling a comic contrast between this funereal church parade of apparel and the rich and glistening meadow, growing wild flowers everywhere. But, indeed, this comic contrast between the yellow blossoms and the black hats was but a symbol of the tragic contrast between the yellow blossoms and the black business. On his right was a

perceives

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

word-- "Please do not think me excessively abrupt; but I advise you to alter those plans, or if it is too late for that, to follow your agent with all the support you can get for him. Comrade Syme and I have had an experience which it would take more time to recount than we can afford, if we are to act on it. I will, however, relate the occurrence in detail, even at the risk of losing time, if you really feel that it is essential to the understanding of the problem we have to discuss." He was spinning out his sentences, making them intolerably long and lingering, in the hope of maddening the practical little Doctor into an explosion of impatience which might show his hand. But the little Doctor continued only to stare and smile, and the monologue was uphill work. Syme began to feel a new sickness and despair. The Doctor's smile and silence were not at all like the cataleptic stare and horrible silence which he had confronted in the Professor half an hour before. About the Professor's makeup and all his antics there was always something merely grotesque, like a gollywog. Syme remembered those wild woes of yesterday as one remembers being afraid of Bogy in childhood. But here was daylight; here was a healthy, square-shouldered man in tweeds, not odd save for the accident of his ugly spectacles, not glaring or grinning at all, but smiling steadily and not saying a word. The whole had a sense of unbearable reality. Under the increasing sunlight the colours of the Doctor's complexion, the pattern of his tweeds, grew and expanded outrageously, as such things grow too important in a realistic novel. But his smile was quite slight, the pose of his head polite; the only uncanny thing was his silence. "As I say," resumed the Professor, like a man toiling through heavy sand, "the incident that has occurred to us and has led us to ask for information about the Marquis, is one which you may think it better to have narrated; but as it came in the way of Comrade Syme rather than me--" His words he seemed to be dragging out like words in an anthem; but Syme, who was watching, saw his long fingers rattle quickly on the edge of the crazy table. He read the message, "You must go on. This devil has sucked me dry!" Syme plunged into the breach with that bravado of improvisation which always came to him when he was alarmed. "Yes, the thing really happened to me," he said hastily. "I had the good fortune to fall into conversation with a detective who took me, thanks to my hat, for a respectable person. Wishing to clinch my reputation for respectability, I took him and made him very drunk at the Savoy. Under this influence he became friendly, and told me in so many words that within a day or two they hope to arrest the Marquis in France. "So unless you or I can get on his track--" The Doctor was still smiling in the most friendly way, and his protected eyes were still impenetrable. The Professor signalled to Syme that he would resume his explanation, and he began again with the same elaborate calm. "Syme immediately brought this information to me, and we came here together to see what use you would be inclined to make of it. It seems to me unquestionably urgent that--" All this time Syme had been staring at the Doctor almost as steadily as the Doctor stared at the Professor, but quite without the smile. The nerves of both comrades-in-arms were near snapping under that strain of motionless amiability, when Syme suddenly leant forward and idly tapped the edge of the table. His message to his ally ran, "I have an intuition." The Professor, with scarcely a pause in his monologue, signalled back, "Then sit on it." Syme telegraphed, "It is quite extraordinary." The other answered, "Extraordinary rot!" Syme said, "I am a poet." The other retorted, "You are a dead man." Syme had gone quite red up to his yellow hair, and his eyes were burning feverishly. As he said he had an intuition, and it had risen to a sort of lightheaded certainty. Resuming his symbolic taps, he signalled to his friend, "You scarcely realise how poetic my intuition is. It has that sudden quality we sometimes feel in the coming of spring." He then studied the answer on his friend's fingers. The answer was, "Go to hell!" The Professor then resumed his merely verbal monologue addressed to the Doctor. "Perhaps I should rather say," said Syme on his fingers, "that it resembles that sudden smell of the sea which may be found in the heart of lush woods." His companion disdained to reply. "Or yet again," tapped Syme, "it is positive, as is the passionate red hair of a beautiful woman." The Professor was continuing his speech, but in the middle of it Syme decided to act. He leant across the table, and said in a voice that could not be neglected-- "Dr. Bull!" The Doctor's sleek and smiling head did not move, but they could have sworn that under his dark glasses his eyes darted towards Syme. "Dr. Bull," said Syme, in a voice peculiarly precise and courteous, "would you do me a small favour? Would you be so kind as to take off your spectacles?" The Professor swung round on his seat, and stared at Syme with a sort of frozen fury of astonishment. Syme, like a man who has thrown his life and fortune on the table, leaned forward with a fiery face. The Doctor did not move. For a few seconds there was a silence in which one could hear a pin drop, split once by the single hoot of a distant steamer on the Thames. Then Dr. Bull rose slowly, still smiling, and took off his spectacles. Syme sprang to his feet, stepping backwards a little, like a chemical lecturer from a successful explosion. His eyes were like stars, and for an instant he could only point without speaking. The Professor had also started to his feet, forgetful of his supposed paralysis. He leant on the back of the chair and stared doubtfully at Dr. Bull, as if the Doctor had been turned into a toad before his eyes. And indeed it was almost as great a transformation scene. The two detectives saw sitting in the chair before them a very boyish-looking young man, with very frank and happy hazel eyes, an open expression, cockney clothes like those of a city clerk, and an unquestionable breath about him of being very good and rather commonplace. The smile was still there, but it might have been the first smile of a baby. "I knew I was a poet," cried Syme in a sort of ecstasy. "I knew my intuition was as infallible as the Pope. It was the spectacles that did it! It was all the spectacles. Given those beastly black eyes, and all the rest of him his health and his jolly looks, made him a live devil among dead ones." "It certainly does make a queer difference," said the Professor shakily. "But as regards the project of Dr. Bull--" "Project be damned!" roared Syme, beside himself. "Look at him! Look at his face, look at his collar, look at his blessed boots! You don't suppose, do you, that that thing's an anarchist?" "Syme!" cried the other in an apprehensive agony. "Why, by God," said Syme, "I'll take the risk of that myself! Dr. Bull, I am a police officer. There's my card," and he flung down the blue card upon the table. The Professor still feared that all was lost; but he was loyal. He pulled out his own official card and put it beside his friend's. Then the third man burst out laughing, and for the first time that morning they heard his voice. "I'm awfully glad you chaps have come so early," he said, with a sort of schoolboy flippancy, "for we can all start for France together. Yes, I'm in the force right enough," and he flicked a blue card towards them lightly as a matter of form. Clapping a brisk bowler on his head and resuming his goblin glasses, the Doctor moved so quickly towards the door, that the others instinctively followed him. Syme seemed a little distrait, and as he passed under the doorway he suddenly struck his stick on the stone passage so that it rang. "But Lord God Almighty," he cried out, "if this is all right, there were more damned detectives than there were damned dynamiters at the damned Council!" "We might have fought easily," said Bull; "we were four against three." The Professor was descending the stairs, but his voice came up from below. "No," said the voice, "we were not four against three--we were not so lucky. We were four against One." The others went down the stairs in silence. The young man called Bull, with an innocent courtesy characteristic of him, insisted on going last until they reached the street; but there his own robust rapidity asserted itself unconsciously, and he walked quickly on ahead towards a railway inquiry office, talking to the others over his shoulder. "It is jolly to get some pals," he said. "I've been half dead with the jumps, being quite alone. I nearly flung my arms round Gogol and embraced him, which would have been imprudent. I hope you won't despise me for having been in a blue funk." "All the blue devils in blue hell," said Syme, "contributed to my blue funk! But the worst devil was you and your infernal goggles." The young man laughed delightedly. "Wasn't it a rag?" he said. "Such a simple idea--not my own. I haven't got the brains. You see, I wanted to go into the detective service, especially the anti-dynamite business. But for that purpose they wanted someone to dress up as a dynamiter; and they all swore by blazes that I could never look like a dynamiter. They said my very walk was respectable, and that seen from behind I looked like the British Constitution. They said I looked too healthy and too optimistic, and too reliable and benevolent; they called me all sorts of names at Scotland Yard. They said that if I had been a criminal, I might have made my fortune by looking so like an honest man; but as I had the misfortune to be an honest man, there was not even the remotest chance of my assisting them by ever looking like a criminal. But at last I was brought before some old josser who was high up in the force, and who seemed to have no end of a head on his shoulders. And there the others all talked hopelessly. One asked whether a bushy beard would hide my nice smile; another said that if they blacked my face I might look like a negro anarchist; but this old chap chipped in with a most extraordinary remark. 'A pair of smoked spectacles will do it,' he said positively. 'Look at him now; he looks like an angelic office boy. Put him on a pair of smoked spectacles, and children will scream at the sight of him.' And so it was, by George! When once my eyes were covered, all the rest, smile and big shoulders and short hair, made me look a perfect little devil. As I say, it was simple enough when it was done, like miracles; but that wasn't the really miraculous part of it. There was one really staggering thing about the business, and my head still turns at it." "What was that?" asked Syme. "I'll tell you," answered the man in spectacles. "This big pot in the police who sized me up so that he knew how the goggles would go with my hair and socks--by God, he never saw me at all!" Syme's eyes suddenly flashed on him. "How was that?" he asked. "I thought you talked to him." "So I did," said Bull brightly; "but we talked in a pitch-dark room like a coalcellar. There, you would never have guessed that." "I could not have conceived it," said Syme gravely. "It is indeed a new idea," said the Professor. Their new ally was in practical matters a whirlwind. At the inquiry office he asked with businesslike brevity about the trains for Dover. Having got his information, he bundled the company into a cab, and put them and himself inside a railway carriage before they had properly realised the breathless process. They were already on the Calais boat before conversation flowed freely. "I had already arranged," he explained, "to go to France for my lunch; but I am delighted to have someone to lunch with me. You see, I had to send that beast, the Marquis, over with his bomb, because the President had his eye on me, though God knows how. I'll tell you the story some day. It was perfectly choking. Whenever I tried to slip out of it I saw the President somewhere, smiling out of the bow-window of a club, or taking off his hat to me from the top of an omnibus. I tell you, you can say what you like, that fellow sold himself to the devil; he can be in six places at once." "So you sent the Marquis off, I understand," asked the Professor. "Was it long ago? Shall we be in time to catch him?" "Yes," answered the new guide, "I've timed it all. He'll still be at Calais when we arrive." "But when we do catch him at Calais," said the Professor, "what are we going to do?" At this question the countenance of Dr. Bull fell for the first time. He reflected a little, and then said-- "Theoretically, I suppose, we ought to call the police." "Not I," said Syme. "Theoretically I ought to drown myself first. I promised a poor fellow, who was a real modern pessimist, on my word of honour not to tell the police. I'm no hand at casuistry, but I can't break my word to a modern pessimist. It's like breaking one's word to a child." "I'm in the same boat," said the Professor. "I tried to tell the police and I couldn't, because of some silly oath I took. You see, when I was an actor I was a sort of all-round beast. Perjury or treason is the only crime I haven't committed. If I did that I shouldn't know the difference between right and wrong." "I've been through all that," said Dr. Bull, "and I've made up my mind. I gave my promise to the Secretary--you know him, man who smiles upside down. My friends, that man is the most utterly unhappy man that was ever human. It may be his digestion, or his conscience, or his nerves, or his philosophy of the universe, but he's damned, he's in hell! Well, I can't turn on a man like that, and hunt him down. It's like whipping a leper. I may be mad, but that's how I feel; and there's jolly well the end of it." "I don't think you're mad," said Syme. "I knew you would decide like that when first you--" "Eh?" said Dr. Bull. "When first you took off your spectacles." Dr. Bull smiled a little, and strolled across the deck to look at the sunlit sea. Then he strolled back again, kicking his heels carelessly, and a companionable silence fell between the three men. "Well," said Syme, "it seems that we have all the same kind of morality or immorality, so we had better face the fact that comes of it." "Yes," assented the Professor, "you're quite right; and we must hurry up, for I can see the Grey Nose standing out from France." "The fact that comes of it," said Syme seriously, "is this, that we three are alone on this planet. Gogol has gone, God knows where; perhaps the President has smashed him like a fly. On the Council we are three men against three, like the Romans who held the bridge. But we are worse off than that, first because they can appeal to their organization and we cannot appeal to ours, and second because--" "Because one of those other three men," said the Professor, "is not a man." Syme nodded and was silent for a second or two, then he said-- "My idea is this. We must do something to keep the Marquis in Calais till tomorrow midday. I have turned over twenty schemes in my head. We cannot denounce him as a dynamiter; that is agreed. We cannot get him detained on some trivial charge, for we should have to appear; he knows us, and he would smell a rat. We cannot pretend to keep him on anarchist business; he might swallow much in that way, but not the notion of stopping in Calais while the Czar went safely through Paris. We might try to kidnap him, and lock him up ourselves; but he is a well-known man here. He has a whole bodyguard of friends; he is very strong and brave, and the event is doubtful. The only thing I can see to do is actually to take advantage of the very things that are in the Marquis's favour. I am going to profit by the fact that he is a highly respected nobleman. I am going to profit by the fact that he has many friends and moves in the best society." "What the devil are you talking about?" asked the Professor. "The Symes are first mentioned in the fourteenth century," said Syme; "but there is a tradition that one of them rode behind Bruce at Bannockburn. Since 1350 the tree is quite clear." "He's gone off his head," said the little Doctor, staring. "Our bearings," continued Syme calmly, "are 'argent a chevron gules charged with three cross crosslets of the field.' The motto varies." The Professor seized Syme roughly by the waistcoat. "We are just inshore," he said. "Are you seasick or joking in the wrong place?" "My remarks are almost painfully practical," answered Syme, in an unhurried manner. "The house of St. Eustache also is very ancient. The Marquis cannot deny that he is a gentleman. He cannot deny that I am a gentleman. And in order to put the matter of my social position quite beyond a doubt, I propose at the earliest opportunity to knock his hat off. But here we are in the harbour." They went on shore under the strong sun in a sort of daze. Syme, who had now taken the lead as Bull had taken it in London, led them along a kind of marine parade until he came to some cafes, embowered in a bulk of greenery and overlooking the sea. As he went before them his step was slightly swaggering, and he swung his stick like a sword. He was making apparently for the extreme end of the line of cafes, but he stopped abruptly. With a sharp gesture he motioned them to silence, but he pointed with one gloved finger to a cafe table under a bank of flowering foliage at which sat the Marquis de St. Eustache, his teeth shining in his thick, black beard, and his bold, brown face shadowed by a light yellow straw hat and outlined against the violet sea. CHAPTER X. THE DUEL SYME sat down at a cafe table with his companions, his blue eyes sparkling like the bright sea below, and ordered a bottle of Saumur with a pleased impatience. He was for some reason in a condition of curious hilarity. His spirits were already unnaturally high; they rose as the Saumur sank, and in half an hour his talk was a torrent of nonsense. He professed to be making out a plan of the conversation which was going to ensue between himself and the deadly Marquis. He jotted it down wildly with a pencil. It was arranged like a printed catechism, with questions and answers, and was delivered with an extraordinary rapidity of utterance. "I shall approach. Before taking off his hat, I shall take off my own. I shall say, 'The Marquis de Saint Eustache, I believe.' He will say, 'The celebrated Mr. Syme, I presume.' He will say in the most exquisite French, 'How are you?' I shall reply in the most exquisite Cockney, 'Oh, just the Syme--'" "Oh, shut it," said the man in spectacles. "Pull yourself together, and chuck away that bit of paper. What are you really going to do?" "But it was a lovely catechism," said Syme pathetically. "Do let me read it you. It has only forty-three questions and answers, and some of the Marquis's answers are wonderfully witty. I like to be just to my enemy." "But what's the good of it all?" asked Dr. Bull in exasperation. "It leads up to my challenge, don't you see," said Syme, beaming. "When the Marquis has given the thirty-ninth reply, which runs--" "Has it by any chance occurred to you," asked the Professor, with a ponderous simplicity, "that the Marquis may not say all the forty-three things you have put down for him? In that case, I understand, your own epigrams may appear somewhat more forced." Syme struck the table with a radiant face. "Why, how true that is," he said, "and I never thought of it. Sir, you have an intellect beyond the common. You will make a name." "Oh, you're as drunk as an owl!" said the Doctor. "It only remains," continued Syme quite unperturbed, "to adopt some other method of breaking the ice (if I may so express it) between myself and the man I wish to kill. And since the course of a dialogue cannot be predicted by one of its parties alone (as you have pointed out with such recondite acumen), the only thing to be done, I suppose, is for the one party, as far as possible, to do all the dialogue by himself. And so I will, by George!" And he stood up suddenly, his yellow hair blowing in the slight sea breeze. A band was playing in a cafe chantant hidden somewhere among the trees, and a woman had just stopped singing. On Syme's heated head the bray of the brass band seemed like the jar and jingle of that barrel-organ in Leicester Square, to the tune of which he had once stood up to die. He looked across to the little table where the Marquis sat. The man had two companions now, solemn Frenchmen in frock-coats and silk hats, one of them with the red rosette of the Legion of Honour, evidently people of a solid social position. Besides these black, cylindrical costumes, the Marquis, in his loose straw hat and light spring clothes, looked Bohemian and even barbaric; but he looked the Marquis. Indeed, one might say that he looked the king, with his animal elegance, his scornful eyes, and his proud head lifted against the purple sea. But he was no Christian king, at any rate; he was, rather, some swarthy despot, half Greek, half Asiatic, who in the days when slavery seemed natural looked down on the Mediterranean, on his galley and his groaning slaves. Just so, Syme thought, would the brown-gold face of such a tyrant have shown against the dark green olives and the burning blue. "Are you going to address the meeting?" asked the Professor peevishly, seeing that Syme still stood up without moving. Syme drained his last glass of sparkling wine. "I am," he said, pointing across to the Marquis and his companions, "that meeting. That meeting displeases me. I am going to pull that meeting's great ugly, mahogany-coloured nose." He stepped across swiftly, if not quite steadily. The Marquis, seeing him, arched his black Assyrian eyebrows in surprise, but smiled politely. "You are Mr. Syme, I think," he said. Syme bowed. "And you are the Marquis de Saint Eustache," he said gracefully. "Permit me to pull your nose." He leant over to do so, but the Marquis started backwards, upsetting his chair, and the two men in top hats held Syme back by the shoulders. "This man has insulted me!" said Syme, with gestures of explanation. "Insulted you?" cried the gentleman with the red rosette, "when?" "Oh, just now," said Syme recklessly. "He insulted my mother." "Insulted your mother!" exclaimed the gentleman incredulously. "Well, anyhow," said Syme, conceding a point, "my aunt." "But how can the Marquis have insulted your aunt just now?" said the second gentleman with some legitimate wonder. "He has been sitting here all the time." "Ah, it was what he said!" said Syme darkly. "I said nothing at all," said the Marquis, "except something about the band. I only said that I liked Wagner played well." "It was an allusion to my family," said Syme firmly. "My aunt played Wagner badly. It was a painful subject. We are always being insulted about it." "This seems most extraordinary," said the gentleman who was decore, looking doubtfully at the Marquis. "Oh, I assure you," said Syme earnestly, "the whole of your conversation was simply packed with sinister allusions to my aunt's weaknesses." "This is nonsense!" said the second gentleman. "I for one have said nothing for half an hour except that I liked the singing of that girl with black hair." "Well, there you are again!" said Syme indignantly. "My aunt's was red." "It seems to me," said the other, "that you are simply seeking a pretext to insult the Marquis." "By George!" said Syme, facing round and looking at him, "what a clever chap you are!" The Marquis started up with eyes flaming like a tiger's. "Seeking a quarrel with me!" he cried. "Seeking a fight with me! By God! there was never a man who had to seek long. These gentlemen will perhaps act for me. There are still four hours of daylight. Let us fight this evening." Syme bowed with a quite beautiful graciousness. "Marquis," he said, "your action is worthy of your fame and blood. Permit me to consult for a moment with the gentlemen in whose hands I shall place myself." In three long strides he rejoined his companions, and they, who had seen his champagne-inspired attack and listened to his idiotic explanations, were quite startled at the look of him. For now that he came back to them he was quite sober, a little pale, and he spoke in a low voice of passionate practicality. "I have done it," he said hoarsely. "I have fixed a fight on the beast. But look here, and listen carefully. There is no time for talk. You are my seconds, and everything must come from you. Now you must insist, and insist absolutely, on the duel coming off after seven tomorrow, so as to give me the chance of preventing him from catching the 7.45 for Paris. If he misses that he misses his crime. He can't refuse to meet you on such a small point of time and place. But this is what he will do. He will choose a field somewhere near a wayside station, where he can pick up the train. He is a very good swordsman, and he will trust to killing me in time to catch it. But I can fence well too, and I think I can keep him in play, at any rate, until the train is lost. Then perhaps he may kill me to console his feelings. You understand? Very well then, let me introduce you to some charming friends of mine," and leading them quickly across the parade, he presented them to the Marquis's seconds by two very aristocratic names of which they had not previously heard. Syme was subject to spasms of singular common sense, not otherwise a part of his character. They were (as he said of his impulse about the spectacles) poetic intuitions, and they sometimes rose to the exaltation of prophecy. He had correctly calculated in this case the policy of his opponent. When the Marquis was informed by his seconds that Syme could only fight in the morning, he must fully have realised that an obstacle had suddenly arisen between him and his bomb-throwing business in the capital. Naturally he could not explain this objection to his friends, so he chose the course which Syme had predicted. He induced his seconds to settle on a small meadow not far from the railway, and he trusted to the fatality of the first engagement. When he came down very coolly to the field of honour, no one could have guessed that he had any anxiety about a journey; his hands were in his pockets, his straw hat on the back of his head, his handsome face brazen in the sun. But it might have struck a stranger as odd that there appeared in his train, not only his seconds carrying the sword-case, but two of his servants carrying a portmanteau and a luncheon basket. Early as was the hour, the sun soaked everything in warmth, and Syme was vaguely surprised to see so many spring flowers burning gold and silver in the tall grass in which the whole company stood almost knee-deep. With the exception of the Marquis, all the men were in sombre and solemn morning-dress, with hats like black chimney-pots; the little Doctor especially, with the addition of his black spectacles, looked like an undertaker in a farce. Syme could not help feeling a comic contrast between this funereal church parade of apparel and the rich and glistening meadow, growing wild flowers everywhere. But, indeed, this comic contrast between the yellow blossoms and the black hats was but a symbol of the tragic contrast between the yellow blossoms and the black business. On his right was a

walked

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

word-- "Please do not think me excessively abrupt; but I advise you to alter those plans, or if it is too late for that, to follow your agent with all the support you can get for him. Comrade Syme and I have had an experience which it would take more time to recount than we can afford, if we are to act on it. I will, however, relate the occurrence in detail, even at the risk of losing time, if you really feel that it is essential to the understanding of the problem we have to discuss." He was spinning out his sentences, making them intolerably long and lingering, in the hope of maddening the practical little Doctor into an explosion of impatience which might show his hand. But the little Doctor continued only to stare and smile, and the monologue was uphill work. Syme began to feel a new sickness and despair. The Doctor's smile and silence were not at all like the cataleptic stare and horrible silence which he had confronted in the Professor half an hour before. About the Professor's makeup and all his antics there was always something merely grotesque, like a gollywog. Syme remembered those wild woes of yesterday as one remembers being afraid of Bogy in childhood. But here was daylight; here was a healthy, square-shouldered man in tweeds, not odd save for the accident of his ugly spectacles, not glaring or grinning at all, but smiling steadily and not saying a word. The whole had a sense of unbearable reality. Under the increasing sunlight the colours of the Doctor's complexion, the pattern of his tweeds, grew and expanded outrageously, as such things grow too important in a realistic novel. But his smile was quite slight, the pose of his head polite; the only uncanny thing was his silence. "As I say," resumed the Professor, like a man toiling through heavy sand, "the incident that has occurred to us and has led us to ask for information about the Marquis, is one which you may think it better to have narrated; but as it came in the way of Comrade Syme rather than me--" His words he seemed to be dragging out like words in an anthem; but Syme, who was watching, saw his long fingers rattle quickly on the edge of the crazy table. He read the message, "You must go on. This devil has sucked me dry!" Syme plunged into the breach with that bravado of improvisation which always came to him when he was alarmed. "Yes, the thing really happened to me," he said hastily. "I had the good fortune to fall into conversation with a detective who took me, thanks to my hat, for a respectable person. Wishing to clinch my reputation for respectability, I took him and made him very drunk at the Savoy. Under this influence he became friendly, and told me in so many words that within a day or two they hope to arrest the Marquis in France. "So unless you or I can get on his track--" The Doctor was still smiling in the most friendly way, and his protected eyes were still impenetrable. The Professor signalled to Syme that he would resume his explanation, and he began again with the same elaborate calm. "Syme immediately brought this information to me, and we came here together to see what use you would be inclined to make of it. It seems to me unquestionably urgent that--" All this time Syme had been staring at the Doctor almost as steadily as the Doctor stared at the Professor, but quite without the smile. The nerves of both comrades-in-arms were near snapping under that strain of motionless amiability, when Syme suddenly leant forward and idly tapped the edge of the table. His message to his ally ran, "I have an intuition." The Professor, with scarcely a pause in his monologue, signalled back, "Then sit on it." Syme telegraphed, "It is quite extraordinary." The other answered, "Extraordinary rot!" Syme said, "I am a poet." The other retorted, "You are a dead man." Syme had gone quite red up to his yellow hair, and his eyes were burning feverishly. As he said he had an intuition, and it had risen to a sort of lightheaded certainty. Resuming his symbolic taps, he signalled to his friend, "You scarcely realise how poetic my intuition is. It has that sudden quality we sometimes feel in the coming of spring." He then studied the answer on his friend's fingers. The answer was, "Go to hell!" The Professor then resumed his merely verbal monologue addressed to the Doctor. "Perhaps I should rather say," said Syme on his fingers, "that it resembles that sudden smell of the sea which may be found in the heart of lush woods." His companion disdained to reply. "Or yet again," tapped Syme, "it is positive, as is the passionate red hair of a beautiful woman." The Professor was continuing his speech, but in the middle of it Syme decided to act. He leant across the table, and said in a voice that could not be neglected-- "Dr. Bull!" The Doctor's sleek and smiling head did not move, but they could have sworn that under his dark glasses his eyes darted towards Syme. "Dr. Bull," said Syme, in a voice peculiarly precise and courteous, "would you do me a small favour? Would you be so kind as to take off your spectacles?" The Professor swung round on his seat, and stared at Syme with a sort of frozen fury of astonishment. Syme, like a man who has thrown his life and fortune on the table, leaned forward with a fiery face. The Doctor did not move. For a few seconds there was a silence in which one could hear a pin drop, split once by the single hoot of a distant steamer on the Thames. Then Dr. Bull rose slowly, still smiling, and took off his spectacles. Syme sprang to his feet, stepping backwards a little, like a chemical lecturer from a successful explosion. His eyes were like stars, and for an instant he could only point without speaking. The Professor had also started to his feet, forgetful of his supposed paralysis. He leant on the back of the chair and stared doubtfully at Dr. Bull, as if the Doctor had been turned into a toad before his eyes. And indeed it was almost as great a transformation scene. The two detectives saw sitting in the chair before them a very boyish-looking young man, with very frank and happy hazel eyes, an open expression, cockney clothes like those of a city clerk, and an unquestionable breath about him of being very good and rather commonplace. The smile was still there, but it might have been the first smile of a baby. "I knew I was a poet," cried Syme in a sort of ecstasy. "I knew my intuition was as infallible as the Pope. It was the spectacles that did it! It was all the spectacles. Given those beastly black eyes, and all the rest of him his health and his jolly looks, made him a live devil among dead ones." "It certainly does make a queer difference," said the Professor shakily. "But as regards the project of Dr. Bull--" "Project be damned!" roared Syme, beside himself. "Look at him! Look at his face, look at his collar, look at his blessed boots! You don't suppose, do you, that that thing's an anarchist?" "Syme!" cried the other in an apprehensive agony. "Why, by God," said Syme, "I'll take the risk of that myself! Dr. Bull, I am a police officer. There's my card," and he flung down the blue card upon the table. The Professor still feared that all was lost; but he was loyal. He pulled out his own official card and put it beside his friend's. Then the third man burst out laughing, and for the first time that morning they heard his voice. "I'm awfully glad you chaps have come so early," he said, with a sort of schoolboy flippancy, "for we can all start for France together. Yes, I'm in the force right enough," and he flicked a blue card towards them lightly as a matter of form. Clapping a brisk bowler on his head and resuming his goblin glasses, the Doctor moved so quickly towards the door, that the others instinctively followed him. Syme seemed a little distrait, and as he passed under the doorway he suddenly struck his stick on the stone passage so that it rang. "But Lord God Almighty," he cried out, "if this is all right, there were more damned detectives than there were damned dynamiters at the damned Council!" "We might have fought easily," said Bull; "we were four against three." The Professor was descending the stairs, but his voice came up from below. "No," said the voice, "we were not four against three--we were not so lucky. We were four against One." The others went down the stairs in silence. The young man called Bull, with an innocent courtesy characteristic of him, insisted on going last until they reached the street; but there his own robust rapidity asserted itself unconsciously, and he walked quickly on ahead towards a railway inquiry office, talking to the others over his shoulder. "It is jolly to get some pals," he said. "I've been half dead with the jumps, being quite alone. I nearly flung my arms round Gogol and embraced him, which would have been imprudent. I hope you won't despise me for having been in a blue funk." "All the blue devils in blue hell," said Syme, "contributed to my blue funk! But the worst devil was you and your infernal goggles." The young man laughed delightedly. "Wasn't it a rag?" he said. "Such a simple idea--not my own. I haven't got the brains. You see, I wanted to go into the detective service, especially the anti-dynamite business. But for that purpose they wanted someone to dress up as a dynamiter; and they all swore by blazes that I could never look like a dynamiter. They said my very walk was respectable, and that seen from behind I looked like the British Constitution. They said I looked too healthy and too optimistic, and too reliable and benevolent; they called me all sorts of names at Scotland Yard. They said that if I had been a criminal, I might have made my fortune by looking so like an honest man; but as I had the misfortune to be an honest man, there was not even the remotest chance of my assisting them by ever looking like a criminal. But at last I was brought before some old josser who was high up in the force, and who seemed to have no end of a head on his shoulders. And there the others all talked hopelessly. One asked whether a bushy beard would hide my nice smile; another said that if they blacked my face I might look like a negro anarchist; but this old chap chipped in with a most extraordinary remark. 'A pair of smoked spectacles will do it,' he said positively. 'Look at him now; he looks like an angelic office boy. Put him on a pair of smoked spectacles, and children will scream at the sight of him.' And so it was, by George! When once my eyes were covered, all the rest, smile and big shoulders and short hair, made me look a perfect little devil. As I say, it was simple enough when it was done, like miracles; but that wasn't the really miraculous part of it. There was one really staggering thing about the business, and my head still turns at it." "What was that?" asked Syme. "I'll tell you," answered the man in spectacles. "This big pot in the police who sized me up so that he knew how the goggles would go with my hair and socks--by God, he never saw me at all!" Syme's eyes suddenly flashed on him. "How was that?" he asked. "I thought you talked to him." "So I did," said Bull brightly; "but we talked in a pitch-dark room like a coalcellar. There, you would never have guessed that." "I could not have conceived it," said Syme gravely. "It is indeed a new idea," said the Professor. Their new ally was in practical matters a whirlwind. At the inquiry office he asked with businesslike brevity about the trains for Dover. Having got his information, he bundled the company into a cab, and put them and himself inside a railway carriage before they had properly realised the breathless process. They were already on the Calais boat before conversation flowed freely. "I had already arranged," he explained, "to go to France for my lunch; but I am delighted to have someone to lunch with me. You see, I had to send that beast, the Marquis, over with his bomb, because the President had his eye on me, though God knows how. I'll tell you the story some day. It was perfectly choking. Whenever I tried to slip out of it I saw the President somewhere, smiling out of the bow-window of a club, or taking off his hat to me from the top of an omnibus. I tell you, you can say what you like, that fellow sold himself to the devil; he can be in six places at once." "So you sent the Marquis off, I understand," asked the Professor. "Was it long ago? Shall we be in time to catch him?" "Yes," answered the new guide, "I've timed it all. He'll still be at Calais when we arrive." "But when we do catch him at Calais," said the Professor, "what are we going to do?" At this question the countenance of Dr. Bull fell for the first time. He reflected a little, and then said-- "Theoretically, I suppose, we ought to call the police." "Not I," said Syme. "Theoretically I ought to drown myself first. I promised a poor fellow, who was a real modern pessimist, on my word of honour not to tell the police. I'm no hand at casuistry, but I can't break my word to a modern pessimist. It's like breaking one's word to a child." "I'm in the same boat," said the Professor. "I tried to tell the police and I couldn't, because of some silly oath I took. You see, when I was an actor I was a sort of all-round beast. Perjury or treason is the only crime I haven't committed. If I did that I shouldn't know the difference between right and wrong." "I've been through all that," said Dr. Bull, "and I've made up my mind. I gave my promise to the Secretary--you know him, man who smiles upside down. My friends, that man is the most utterly unhappy man that was ever human. It may be his digestion, or his conscience, or his nerves, or his philosophy of the universe, but he's damned, he's in hell! Well, I can't turn on a man like that, and hunt him down. It's like whipping a leper. I may be mad, but that's how I feel; and there's jolly well the end of it." "I don't think you're mad," said Syme. "I knew you would decide like that when first you--" "Eh?" said Dr. Bull. "When first you took off your spectacles." Dr. Bull smiled a little, and strolled across the deck to look at the sunlit sea. Then he strolled back again, kicking his heels carelessly, and a companionable silence fell between the three men. "Well," said Syme, "it seems that we have all the same kind of morality or immorality, so we had better face the fact that comes of it." "Yes," assented the Professor, "you're quite right; and we must hurry up, for I can see the Grey Nose standing out from France." "The fact that comes of it," said Syme seriously, "is this, that we three are alone on this planet. Gogol has gone, God knows where; perhaps the President has smashed him like a fly. On the Council we are three men against three, like the Romans who held the bridge. But we are worse off than that, first because they can appeal to their organization and we cannot appeal to ours, and second because--" "Because one of those other three men," said the Professor, "is not a man." Syme nodded and was silent for a second or two, then he said-- "My idea is this. We must do something to keep the Marquis in Calais till tomorrow midday. I have turned over twenty schemes in my head. We cannot denounce him as a dynamiter; that is agreed. We cannot get him detained on some trivial charge, for we should have to appear; he knows us, and he would smell a rat. We cannot pretend to keep him on anarchist business; he might swallow much in that way, but not the notion of stopping in Calais while the Czar went safely through Paris. We might try to kidnap him, and lock him up ourselves; but he is a well-known man here. He has a whole bodyguard of friends; he is very strong and brave, and the event is doubtful. The only thing I can see to do is actually to take advantage of the very things that are in the Marquis's favour. I am going to profit by the fact that he is a highly respected nobleman. I am going to profit by the fact that he has many friends and moves in the best society." "What the devil are you talking about?" asked the Professor. "The Symes are first mentioned in the fourteenth century," said Syme; "but there is a tradition that one of them rode behind Bruce at Bannockburn. Since 1350 the tree is quite clear." "He's gone off his head," said the little Doctor, staring. "Our bearings," continued Syme calmly, "are 'argent a chevron gules charged with three cross crosslets of the field.' The motto varies." The Professor seized Syme roughly by the waistcoat. "We are just inshore," he said. "Are you seasick or joking in the wrong place?" "My remarks are almost painfully practical," answered Syme, in an unhurried manner. "The house of St. Eustache also is very ancient. The Marquis cannot deny that he is a gentleman. He cannot deny that I am a gentleman. And in order to put the matter of my social position quite beyond a doubt, I propose at the earliest opportunity to knock his hat off. But here we are in the harbour." They went on shore under the strong sun in a sort of daze. Syme, who had now taken the lead as Bull had taken it in London, led them along a kind of marine parade until he came to some cafes, embowered in a bulk of greenery and overlooking the sea. As he went before them his step was slightly swaggering, and he swung his stick like a sword. He was making apparently for the extreme end of the line of cafes, but he stopped abruptly. With a sharp gesture he motioned them to silence, but he pointed with one gloved finger to a cafe table under a bank of flowering foliage at which sat the Marquis de St. Eustache, his teeth shining in his thick, black beard, and his bold, brown face shadowed by a light yellow straw hat and outlined against the violet sea. CHAPTER X. THE DUEL SYME sat down at a cafe table with his companions, his blue eyes sparkling like the bright sea below, and ordered a bottle of Saumur with a pleased impatience. He was for some reason in a condition of curious hilarity. His spirits were already unnaturally high; they rose as the Saumur sank, and in half an hour his talk was a torrent of nonsense. He professed to be making out a plan of the conversation which was going to ensue between himself and the deadly Marquis. He jotted it down wildly with a pencil. It was arranged like a printed catechism, with questions and answers, and was delivered with an extraordinary rapidity of utterance. "I shall approach. Before taking off his hat, I shall take off my own. I shall say, 'The Marquis de Saint Eustache, I believe.' He will say, 'The celebrated Mr. Syme, I presume.' He will say in the most exquisite French, 'How are you?' I shall reply in the most exquisite Cockney, 'Oh, just the Syme--'" "Oh, shut it," said the man in spectacles. "Pull yourself together, and chuck away that bit of paper. What are you really going to do?" "But it was a lovely catechism," said Syme pathetically. "Do let me read it you. It has only forty-three questions and answers, and some of the Marquis's answers are wonderfully witty. I like to be just to my enemy." "But what's the good of it all?" asked Dr. Bull in exasperation. "It leads up to my challenge, don't you see," said Syme, beaming. "When the Marquis has given the thirty-ninth reply, which runs--" "Has it by any chance occurred to you," asked the Professor, with a ponderous simplicity, "that the Marquis may not say all the forty-three things you have put down for him? In that case, I understand, your own epigrams may appear somewhat more forced." Syme struck the table with a radiant face. "Why, how true that is," he said, "and I never thought of it. Sir, you have an intellect beyond the common. You will make a name." "Oh, you're as drunk as an owl!" said the Doctor. "It only remains," continued Syme quite unperturbed, "to adopt some other method of breaking the ice (if I may so express it) between myself and the man I wish to kill. And since the course of a dialogue cannot be predicted by one of its parties alone (as you have pointed out with such recondite acumen), the only thing to be done, I suppose, is for the one party, as far as possible, to do all the dialogue by himself. And so I will, by George!" And he stood up suddenly, his yellow hair blowing in the slight sea breeze. A band was playing in a cafe chantant hidden somewhere among the trees, and a woman had just stopped singing. On Syme's heated head the bray of the brass band seemed like the jar and jingle of that barrel-organ in Leicester Square, to the tune of which he had once stood up to die. He looked across to the little table where the Marquis sat. The man had two companions now, solemn Frenchmen in frock-coats and silk hats, one of them with the red rosette of the Legion of Honour, evidently people of a solid social position. Besides these black, cylindrical costumes, the Marquis, in his loose straw hat and light spring clothes, looked Bohemian and even barbaric; but he looked the Marquis. Indeed, one might say that he looked the king, with his animal elegance, his scornful eyes, and his proud head lifted against the purple sea. But he was no Christian king, at any rate; he was, rather, some swarthy despot, half Greek, half Asiatic, who in the days when slavery seemed natural looked down on the Mediterranean, on his galley and his groaning slaves. Just so, Syme thought, would the brown-gold face of such a tyrant have shown against the dark green olives and the burning blue. "Are you going to address the meeting?" asked the Professor peevishly, seeing that Syme still stood up without moving. Syme drained his last glass of sparkling wine. "I am," he said, pointing across to the Marquis and his companions, "that meeting. That meeting displeases me. I am going to pull that meeting's great ugly, mahogany-coloured nose." He stepped across swiftly, if not quite steadily. The Marquis, seeing him, arched his black Assyrian eyebrows in surprise, but smiled politely. "You are Mr. Syme, I think," he said. Syme bowed. "And you are the Marquis de Saint Eustache," he said gracefully. "Permit me to pull your nose." He leant over to do so, but the Marquis started backwards, upsetting his chair, and the two men in top hats held Syme back by the shoulders. "This man has insulted me!" said Syme, with gestures of explanation. "Insulted you?" cried the gentleman with the red rosette, "when?" "Oh, just now," said Syme recklessly. "He insulted my mother." "Insulted your mother!" exclaimed the gentleman incredulously. "Well, anyhow," said Syme, conceding a point, "my aunt." "But how can the Marquis have insulted your aunt just now?" said the second gentleman with some legitimate wonder. "He has been sitting here all the time." "Ah, it was what he said!" said Syme darkly. "I said nothing at all," said the Marquis, "except something about the band. I only said that I liked Wagner played well." "It was an allusion to my family," said Syme firmly. "My aunt played Wagner badly. It was a painful subject. We are always being insulted about it." "This seems most extraordinary," said the gentleman who was decore, looking doubtfully at the Marquis. "Oh, I assure you," said Syme earnestly, "the whole of your conversation was simply packed with sinister allusions to my aunt's weaknesses." "This is nonsense!" said the second gentleman. "I for one have said nothing for half an hour except that I liked the singing of that girl with black hair." "Well, there you are again!" said Syme indignantly. "My aunt's was red." "It seems to me," said the other, "that you are simply seeking a pretext to insult the Marquis." "By George!" said Syme, facing round and looking at him, "what a clever chap you are!" The Marquis started up with eyes flaming like a tiger's. "Seeking a quarrel with me!" he cried. "Seeking a fight with me! By God! there was never a man who had to seek long. These gentlemen will perhaps act for me. There are still four hours of daylight. Let us fight this evening." Syme bowed with a quite beautiful graciousness. "Marquis," he said, "your action is worthy of your fame and blood. Permit me to consult for a moment with the gentlemen in whose hands I shall place myself." In three long strides he rejoined his companions, and they, who had seen his champagne-inspired attack and listened to his idiotic explanations, were quite startled at the look of him. For now that he came back to them he was quite sober, a little pale, and he spoke in a low voice of passionate practicality. "I have done it," he said hoarsely. "I have fixed a fight on the beast. But look here, and listen carefully. There is no time for talk. You are my seconds, and everything must come from you. Now you must insist, and insist absolutely, on the duel coming off after seven tomorrow, so as to give me the chance of preventing him from catching the 7.45 for Paris. If he misses that he misses his crime. He can't refuse to meet you on such a small point of time and place. But this is what he will do. He will choose a field somewhere near a wayside station, where he can pick up the train. He is a very good swordsman, and he will trust to killing me in time to catch it. But I can fence well too, and I think I can keep him in play, at any rate, until the train is lost. Then perhaps he may kill me to console his feelings. You understand? Very well then, let me introduce you to some charming friends of mine," and leading them quickly across the parade, he presented them to the Marquis's seconds by two very aristocratic names of which they had not previously heard. Syme was subject to spasms of singular common sense, not otherwise a part of his character. They were (as he said of his impulse about the spectacles) poetic intuitions, and they sometimes rose to the exaltation of prophecy. He had correctly calculated in this case the policy of his opponent. When the Marquis was informed by his seconds that Syme could only fight in the morning, he must fully have realised that an obstacle had suddenly arisen between him and his bomb-throwing business in the capital. Naturally he could not explain this objection to his friends, so he chose the course which Syme had predicted. He induced his seconds to settle on a small meadow not far from the railway, and he trusted to the fatality of the first engagement. When he came down very coolly to the field of honour, no one could have guessed that he had any anxiety about a journey; his hands were in his pockets, his straw hat on the back of his head, his handsome face brazen in the sun. But it might have struck a stranger as odd that there appeared in his train, not only his seconds carrying the sword-case, but two of his servants carrying a portmanteau and a luncheon basket. Early as was the hour, the sun soaked everything in warmth, and Syme was vaguely surprised to see so many spring flowers burning gold and silver in the tall grass in which the whole company stood almost knee-deep. With the exception of the Marquis, all the men were in sombre and solemn morning-dress, with hats like black chimney-pots; the little Doctor especially, with the addition of his black spectacles, looked like an undertaker in a farce. Syme could not help feeling a comic contrast between this funereal church parade of apparel and the rich and glistening meadow, growing wild flowers everywhere. But, indeed, this comic contrast between the yellow blossoms and the black hats was but a symbol of the tragic contrast between the yellow blossoms and the black business. On his right was a

door

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

word-- "Please do not think me excessively abrupt; but I advise you to alter those plans, or if it is too late for that, to follow your agent with all the support you can get for him. Comrade Syme and I have had an experience which it would take more time to recount than we can afford, if we are to act on it. I will, however, relate the occurrence in detail, even at the risk of losing time, if you really feel that it is essential to the understanding of the problem we have to discuss." He was spinning out his sentences, making them intolerably long and lingering, in the hope of maddening the practical little Doctor into an explosion of impatience which might show his hand. But the little Doctor continued only to stare and smile, and the monologue was uphill work. Syme began to feel a new sickness and despair. The Doctor's smile and silence were not at all like the cataleptic stare and horrible silence which he had confronted in the Professor half an hour before. About the Professor's makeup and all his antics there was always something merely grotesque, like a gollywog. Syme remembered those wild woes of yesterday as one remembers being afraid of Bogy in childhood. But here was daylight; here was a healthy, square-shouldered man in tweeds, not odd save for the accident of his ugly spectacles, not glaring or grinning at all, but smiling steadily and not saying a word. The whole had a sense of unbearable reality. Under the increasing sunlight the colours of the Doctor's complexion, the pattern of his tweeds, grew and expanded outrageously, as such things grow too important in a realistic novel. But his smile was quite slight, the pose of his head polite; the only uncanny thing was his silence. "As I say," resumed the Professor, like a man toiling through heavy sand, "the incident that has occurred to us and has led us to ask for information about the Marquis, is one which you may think it better to have narrated; but as it came in the way of Comrade Syme rather than me--" His words he seemed to be dragging out like words in an anthem; but Syme, who was watching, saw his long fingers rattle quickly on the edge of the crazy table. He read the message, "You must go on. This devil has sucked me dry!" Syme plunged into the breach with that bravado of improvisation which always came to him when he was alarmed. "Yes, the thing really happened to me," he said hastily. "I had the good fortune to fall into conversation with a detective who took me, thanks to my hat, for a respectable person. Wishing to clinch my reputation for respectability, I took him and made him very drunk at the Savoy. Under this influence he became friendly, and told me in so many words that within a day or two they hope to arrest the Marquis in France. "So unless you or I can get on his track--" The Doctor was still smiling in the most friendly way, and his protected eyes were still impenetrable. The Professor signalled to Syme that he would resume his explanation, and he began again with the same elaborate calm. "Syme immediately brought this information to me, and we came here together to see what use you would be inclined to make of it. It seems to me unquestionably urgent that--" All this time Syme had been staring at the Doctor almost as steadily as the Doctor stared at the Professor, but quite without the smile. The nerves of both comrades-in-arms were near snapping under that strain of motionless amiability, when Syme suddenly leant forward and idly tapped the edge of the table. His message to his ally ran, "I have an intuition." The Professor, with scarcely a pause in his monologue, signalled back, "Then sit on it." Syme telegraphed, "It is quite extraordinary." The other answered, "Extraordinary rot!" Syme said, "I am a poet." The other retorted, "You are a dead man." Syme had gone quite red up to his yellow hair, and his eyes were burning feverishly. As he said he had an intuition, and it had risen to a sort of lightheaded certainty. Resuming his symbolic taps, he signalled to his friend, "You scarcely realise how poetic my intuition is. It has that sudden quality we sometimes feel in the coming of spring." He then studied the answer on his friend's fingers. The answer was, "Go to hell!" The Professor then resumed his merely verbal monologue addressed to the Doctor. "Perhaps I should rather say," said Syme on his fingers, "that it resembles that sudden smell of the sea which may be found in the heart of lush woods." His companion disdained to reply. "Or yet again," tapped Syme, "it is positive, as is the passionate red hair of a beautiful woman." The Professor was continuing his speech, but in the middle of it Syme decided to act. He leant across the table, and said in a voice that could not be neglected-- "Dr. Bull!" The Doctor's sleek and smiling head did not move, but they could have sworn that under his dark glasses his eyes darted towards Syme. "Dr. Bull," said Syme, in a voice peculiarly precise and courteous, "would you do me a small favour? Would you be so kind as to take off your spectacles?" The Professor swung round on his seat, and stared at Syme with a sort of frozen fury of astonishment. Syme, like a man who has thrown his life and fortune on the table, leaned forward with a fiery face. The Doctor did not move. For a few seconds there was a silence in which one could hear a pin drop, split once by the single hoot of a distant steamer on the Thames. Then Dr. Bull rose slowly, still smiling, and took off his spectacles. Syme sprang to his feet, stepping backwards a little, like a chemical lecturer from a successful explosion. His eyes were like stars, and for an instant he could only point without speaking. The Professor had also started to his feet, forgetful of his supposed paralysis. He leant on the back of the chair and stared doubtfully at Dr. Bull, as if the Doctor had been turned into a toad before his eyes. And indeed it was almost as great a transformation scene. The two detectives saw sitting in the chair before them a very boyish-looking young man, with very frank and happy hazel eyes, an open expression, cockney clothes like those of a city clerk, and an unquestionable breath about him of being very good and rather commonplace. The smile was still there, but it might have been the first smile of a baby. "I knew I was a poet," cried Syme in a sort of ecstasy. "I knew my intuition was as infallible as the Pope. It was the spectacles that did it! It was all the spectacles. Given those beastly black eyes, and all the rest of him his health and his jolly looks, made him a live devil among dead ones." "It certainly does make a queer difference," said the Professor shakily. "But as regards the project of Dr. Bull--" "Project be damned!" roared Syme, beside himself. "Look at him! Look at his face, look at his collar, look at his blessed boots! You don't suppose, do you, that that thing's an anarchist?" "Syme!" cried the other in an apprehensive agony. "Why, by God," said Syme, "I'll take the risk of that myself! Dr. Bull, I am a police officer. There's my card," and he flung down the blue card upon the table. The Professor still feared that all was lost; but he was loyal. He pulled out his own official card and put it beside his friend's. Then the third man burst out laughing, and for the first time that morning they heard his voice. "I'm awfully glad you chaps have come so early," he said, with a sort of schoolboy flippancy, "for we can all start for France together. Yes, I'm in the force right enough," and he flicked a blue card towards them lightly as a matter of form. Clapping a brisk bowler on his head and resuming his goblin glasses, the Doctor moved so quickly towards the door, that the others instinctively followed him. Syme seemed a little distrait, and as he passed under the doorway he suddenly struck his stick on the stone passage so that it rang. "But Lord God Almighty," he cried out, "if this is all right, there were more damned detectives than there were damned dynamiters at the damned Council!" "We might have fought easily," said Bull; "we were four against three." The Professor was descending the stairs, but his voice came up from below. "No," said the voice, "we were not four against three--we were not so lucky. We were four against One." The others went down the stairs in silence. The young man called Bull, with an innocent courtesy characteristic of him, insisted on going last until they reached the street; but there his own robust rapidity asserted itself unconsciously, and he walked quickly on ahead towards a railway inquiry office, talking to the others over his shoulder. "It is jolly to get some pals," he said. "I've been half dead with the jumps, being quite alone. I nearly flung my arms round Gogol and embraced him, which would have been imprudent. I hope you won't despise me for having been in a blue funk." "All the blue devils in blue hell," said Syme, "contributed to my blue funk! But the worst devil was you and your infernal goggles." The young man laughed delightedly. "Wasn't it a rag?" he said. "Such a simple idea--not my own. I haven't got the brains. You see, I wanted to go into the detective service, especially the anti-dynamite business. But for that purpose they wanted someone to dress up as a dynamiter; and they all swore by blazes that I could never look like a dynamiter. They said my very walk was respectable, and that seen from behind I looked like the British Constitution. They said I looked too healthy and too optimistic, and too reliable and benevolent; they called me all sorts of names at Scotland Yard. They said that if I had been a criminal, I might have made my fortune by looking so like an honest man; but as I had the misfortune to be an honest man, there was not even the remotest chance of my assisting them by ever looking like a criminal. But at last I was brought before some old josser who was high up in the force, and who seemed to have no end of a head on his shoulders. And there the others all talked hopelessly. One asked whether a bushy beard would hide my nice smile; another said that if they blacked my face I might look like a negro anarchist; but this old chap chipped in with a most extraordinary remark. 'A pair of smoked spectacles will do it,' he said positively. 'Look at him now; he looks like an angelic office boy. Put him on a pair of smoked spectacles, and children will scream at the sight of him.' And so it was, by George! When once my eyes were covered, all the rest, smile and big shoulders and short hair, made me look a perfect little devil. As I say, it was simple enough when it was done, like miracles; but that wasn't the really miraculous part of it. There was one really staggering thing about the business, and my head still turns at it." "What was that?" asked Syme. "I'll tell you," answered the man in spectacles. "This big pot in the police who sized me up so that he knew how the goggles would go with my hair and socks--by God, he never saw me at all!" Syme's eyes suddenly flashed on him. "How was that?" he asked. "I thought you talked to him." "So I did," said Bull brightly; "but we talked in a pitch-dark room like a coalcellar. There, you would never have guessed that." "I could not have conceived it," said Syme gravely. "It is indeed a new idea," said the Professor. Their new ally was in practical matters a whirlwind. At the inquiry office he asked with businesslike brevity about the trains for Dover. Having got his information, he bundled the company into a cab, and put them and himself inside a railway carriage before they had properly realised the breathless process. They were already on the Calais boat before conversation flowed freely. "I had already arranged," he explained, "to go to France for my lunch; but I am delighted to have someone to lunch with me. You see, I had to send that beast, the Marquis, over with his bomb, because the President had his eye on me, though God knows how. I'll tell you the story some day. It was perfectly choking. Whenever I tried to slip out of it I saw the President somewhere, smiling out of the bow-window of a club, or taking off his hat to me from the top of an omnibus. I tell you, you can say what you like, that fellow sold himself to the devil; he can be in six places at once." "So you sent the Marquis off, I understand," asked the Professor. "Was it long ago? Shall we be in time to catch him?" "Yes," answered the new guide, "I've timed it all. He'll still be at Calais when we arrive." "But when we do catch him at Calais," said the Professor, "what are we going to do?" At this question the countenance of Dr. Bull fell for the first time. He reflected a little, and then said-- "Theoretically, I suppose, we ought to call the police." "Not I," said Syme. "Theoretically I ought to drown myself first. I promised a poor fellow, who was a real modern pessimist, on my word of honour not to tell the police. I'm no hand at casuistry, but I can't break my word to a modern pessimist. It's like breaking one's word to a child." "I'm in the same boat," said the Professor. "I tried to tell the police and I couldn't, because of some silly oath I took. You see, when I was an actor I was a sort of all-round beast. Perjury or treason is the only crime I haven't committed. If I did that I shouldn't know the difference between right and wrong." "I've been through all that," said Dr. Bull, "and I've made up my mind. I gave my promise to the Secretary--you know him, man who smiles upside down. My friends, that man is the most utterly unhappy man that was ever human. It may be his digestion, or his conscience, or his nerves, or his philosophy of the universe, but he's damned, he's in hell! Well, I can't turn on a man like that, and hunt him down. It's like whipping a leper. I may be mad, but that's how I feel; and there's jolly well the end of it." "I don't think you're mad," said Syme. "I knew you would decide like that when first you--" "Eh?" said Dr. Bull. "When first you took off your spectacles." Dr. Bull smiled a little, and strolled across the deck to look at the sunlit sea. Then he strolled back again, kicking his heels carelessly, and a companionable silence fell between the three men. "Well," said Syme, "it seems that we have all the same kind of morality or immorality, so we had better face the fact that comes of it." "Yes," assented the Professor, "you're quite right; and we must hurry up, for I can see the Grey Nose standing out from France." "The fact that comes of it," said Syme seriously, "is this, that we three are alone on this planet. Gogol has gone, God knows where; perhaps the President has smashed him like a fly. On the Council we are three men against three, like the Romans who held the bridge. But we are worse off than that, first because they can appeal to their organization and we cannot appeal to ours, and second because--" "Because one of those other three men," said the Professor, "is not a man." Syme nodded and was silent for a second or two, then he said-- "My idea is this. We must do something to keep the Marquis in Calais till tomorrow midday. I have turned over twenty schemes in my head. We cannot denounce him as a dynamiter; that is agreed. We cannot get him detained on some trivial charge, for we should have to appear; he knows us, and he would smell a rat. We cannot pretend to keep him on anarchist business; he might swallow much in that way, but not the notion of stopping in Calais while the Czar went safely through Paris. We might try to kidnap him, and lock him up ourselves; but he is a well-known man here. He has a whole bodyguard of friends; he is very strong and brave, and the event is doubtful. The only thing I can see to do is actually to take advantage of the very things that are in the Marquis's favour. I am going to profit by the fact that he is a highly respected nobleman. I am going to profit by the fact that he has many friends and moves in the best society." "What the devil are you talking about?" asked the Professor. "The Symes are first mentioned in the fourteenth century," said Syme; "but there is a tradition that one of them rode behind Bruce at Bannockburn. Since 1350 the tree is quite clear." "He's gone off his head," said the little Doctor, staring. "Our bearings," continued Syme calmly, "are 'argent a chevron gules charged with three cross crosslets of the field.' The motto varies." The Professor seized Syme roughly by the waistcoat. "We are just inshore," he said. "Are you seasick or joking in the wrong place?" "My remarks are almost painfully practical," answered Syme, in an unhurried manner. "The house of St. Eustache also is very ancient. The Marquis cannot deny that he is a gentleman. He cannot deny that I am a gentleman. And in order to put the matter of my social position quite beyond a doubt, I propose at the earliest opportunity to knock his hat off. But here we are in the harbour." They went on shore under the strong sun in a sort of daze. Syme, who had now taken the lead as Bull had taken it in London, led them along a kind of marine parade until he came to some cafes, embowered in a bulk of greenery and overlooking the sea. As he went before them his step was slightly swaggering, and he swung his stick like a sword. He was making apparently for the extreme end of the line of cafes, but he stopped abruptly. With a sharp gesture he motioned them to silence, but he pointed with one gloved finger to a cafe table under a bank of flowering foliage at which sat the Marquis de St. Eustache, his teeth shining in his thick, black beard, and his bold, brown face shadowed by a light yellow straw hat and outlined against the violet sea. CHAPTER X. THE DUEL SYME sat down at a cafe table with his companions, his blue eyes sparkling like the bright sea below, and ordered a bottle of Saumur with a pleased impatience. He was for some reason in a condition of curious hilarity. His spirits were already unnaturally high; they rose as the Saumur sank, and in half an hour his talk was a torrent of nonsense. He professed to be making out a plan of the conversation which was going to ensue between himself and the deadly Marquis. He jotted it down wildly with a pencil. It was arranged like a printed catechism, with questions and answers, and was delivered with an extraordinary rapidity of utterance. "I shall approach. Before taking off his hat, I shall take off my own. I shall say, 'The Marquis de Saint Eustache, I believe.' He will say, 'The celebrated Mr. Syme, I presume.' He will say in the most exquisite French, 'How are you?' I shall reply in the most exquisite Cockney, 'Oh, just the Syme--'" "Oh, shut it," said the man in spectacles. "Pull yourself together, and chuck away that bit of paper. What are you really going to do?" "But it was a lovely catechism," said Syme pathetically. "Do let me read it you. It has only forty-three questions and answers, and some of the Marquis's answers are wonderfully witty. I like to be just to my enemy." "But what's the good of it all?" asked Dr. Bull in exasperation. "It leads up to my challenge, don't you see," said Syme, beaming. "When the Marquis has given the thirty-ninth reply, which runs--" "Has it by any chance occurred to you," asked the Professor, with a ponderous simplicity, "that the Marquis may not say all the forty-three things you have put down for him? In that case, I understand, your own epigrams may appear somewhat more forced." Syme struck the table with a radiant face. "Why, how true that is," he said, "and I never thought of it. Sir, you have an intellect beyond the common. You will make a name." "Oh, you're as drunk as an owl!" said the Doctor. "It only remains," continued Syme quite unperturbed, "to adopt some other method of breaking the ice (if I may so express it) between myself and the man I wish to kill. And since the course of a dialogue cannot be predicted by one of its parties alone (as you have pointed out with such recondite acumen), the only thing to be done, I suppose, is for the one party, as far as possible, to do all the dialogue by himself. And so I will, by George!" And he stood up suddenly, his yellow hair blowing in the slight sea breeze. A band was playing in a cafe chantant hidden somewhere among the trees, and a woman had just stopped singing. On Syme's heated head the bray of the brass band seemed like the jar and jingle of that barrel-organ in Leicester Square, to the tune of which he had once stood up to die. He looked across to the little table where the Marquis sat. The man had two companions now, solemn Frenchmen in frock-coats and silk hats, one of them with the red rosette of the Legion of Honour, evidently people of a solid social position. Besides these black, cylindrical costumes, the Marquis, in his loose straw hat and light spring clothes, looked Bohemian and even barbaric; but he looked the Marquis. Indeed, one might say that he looked the king, with his animal elegance, his scornful eyes, and his proud head lifted against the purple sea. But he was no Christian king, at any rate; he was, rather, some swarthy despot, half Greek, half Asiatic, who in the days when slavery seemed natural looked down on the Mediterranean, on his galley and his groaning slaves. Just so, Syme thought, would the brown-gold face of such a tyrant have shown against the dark green olives and the burning blue. "Are you going to address the meeting?" asked the Professor peevishly, seeing that Syme still stood up without moving. Syme drained his last glass of sparkling wine. "I am," he said, pointing across to the Marquis and his companions, "that meeting. That meeting displeases me. I am going to pull that meeting's great ugly, mahogany-coloured nose." He stepped across swiftly, if not quite steadily. The Marquis, seeing him, arched his black Assyrian eyebrows in surprise, but smiled politely. "You are Mr. Syme, I think," he said. Syme bowed. "And you are the Marquis de Saint Eustache," he said gracefully. "Permit me to pull your nose." He leant over to do so, but the Marquis started backwards, upsetting his chair, and the two men in top hats held Syme back by the shoulders. "This man has insulted me!" said Syme, with gestures of explanation. "Insulted you?" cried the gentleman with the red rosette, "when?" "Oh, just now," said Syme recklessly. "He insulted my mother." "Insulted your mother!" exclaimed the gentleman incredulously. "Well, anyhow," said Syme, conceding a point, "my aunt." "But how can the Marquis have insulted your aunt just now?" said the second gentleman with some legitimate wonder. "He has been sitting here all the time." "Ah, it was what he said!" said Syme darkly. "I said nothing at all," said the Marquis, "except something about the band. I only said that I liked Wagner played well." "It was an allusion to my family," said Syme firmly. "My aunt played Wagner badly. It was a painful subject. We are always being insulted about it." "This seems most extraordinary," said the gentleman who was decore, looking doubtfully at the Marquis. "Oh, I assure you," said Syme earnestly, "the whole of your conversation was simply packed with sinister allusions to my aunt's weaknesses." "This is nonsense!" said the second gentleman. "I for one have said nothing for half an hour except that I liked the singing of that girl with black hair." "Well, there you are again!" said Syme indignantly. "My aunt's was red." "It seems to me," said the other, "that you are simply seeking a pretext to insult the Marquis." "By George!" said Syme, facing round and looking at him, "what a clever chap you are!" The Marquis started up with eyes flaming like a tiger's. "Seeking a quarrel with me!" he cried. "Seeking a fight with me! By God! there was never a man who had to seek long. These gentlemen will perhaps act for me. There are still four hours of daylight. Let us fight this evening." Syme bowed with a quite beautiful graciousness. "Marquis," he said, "your action is worthy of your fame and blood. Permit me to consult for a moment with the gentlemen in whose hands I shall place myself." In three long strides he rejoined his companions, and they, who had seen his champagne-inspired attack and listened to his idiotic explanations, were quite startled at the look of him. For now that he came back to them he was quite sober, a little pale, and he spoke in a low voice of passionate practicality. "I have done it," he said hoarsely. "I have fixed a fight on the beast. But look here, and listen carefully. There is no time for talk. You are my seconds, and everything must come from you. Now you must insist, and insist absolutely, on the duel coming off after seven tomorrow, so as to give me the chance of preventing him from catching the 7.45 for Paris. If he misses that he misses his crime. He can't refuse to meet you on such a small point of time and place. But this is what he will do. He will choose a field somewhere near a wayside station, where he can pick up the train. He is a very good swordsman, and he will trust to killing me in time to catch it. But I can fence well too, and I think I can keep him in play, at any rate, until the train is lost. Then perhaps he may kill me to console his feelings. You understand? Very well then, let me introduce you to some charming friends of mine," and leading them quickly across the parade, he presented them to the Marquis's seconds by two very aristocratic names of which they had not previously heard. Syme was subject to spasms of singular common sense, not otherwise a part of his character. They were (as he said of his impulse about the spectacles) poetic intuitions, and they sometimes rose to the exaltation of prophecy. He had correctly calculated in this case the policy of his opponent. When the Marquis was informed by his seconds that Syme could only fight in the morning, he must fully have realised that an obstacle had suddenly arisen between him and his bomb-throwing business in the capital. Naturally he could not explain this objection to his friends, so he chose the course which Syme had predicted. He induced his seconds to settle on a small meadow not far from the railway, and he trusted to the fatality of the first engagement. When he came down very coolly to the field of honour, no one could have guessed that he had any anxiety about a journey; his hands were in his pockets, his straw hat on the back of his head, his handsome face brazen in the sun. But it might have struck a stranger as odd that there appeared in his train, not only his seconds carrying the sword-case, but two of his servants carrying a portmanteau and a luncheon basket. Early as was the hour, the sun soaked everything in warmth, and Syme was vaguely surprised to see so many spring flowers burning gold and silver in the tall grass in which the whole company stood almost knee-deep. With the exception of the Marquis, all the men were in sombre and solemn morning-dress, with hats like black chimney-pots; the little Doctor especially, with the addition of his black spectacles, looked like an undertaker in a farce. Syme could not help feeling a comic contrast between this funereal church parade of apparel and the rich and glistening meadow, growing wild flowers everywhere. But, indeed, this comic contrast between the yellow blossoms and the black hats was but a symbol of the tragic contrast between the yellow blossoms and the black business. On his right was a

respectable

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

word-- "Please do not think me excessively abrupt; but I advise you to alter those plans, or if it is too late for that, to follow your agent with all the support you can get for him. Comrade Syme and I have had an experience which it would take more time to recount than we can afford, if we are to act on it. I will, however, relate the occurrence in detail, even at the risk of losing time, if you really feel that it is essential to the understanding of the problem we have to discuss." He was spinning out his sentences, making them intolerably long and lingering, in the hope of maddening the practical little Doctor into an explosion of impatience which might show his hand. But the little Doctor continued only to stare and smile, and the monologue was uphill work. Syme began to feel a new sickness and despair. The Doctor's smile and silence were not at all like the cataleptic stare and horrible silence which he had confronted in the Professor half an hour before. About the Professor's makeup and all his antics there was always something merely grotesque, like a gollywog. Syme remembered those wild woes of yesterday as one remembers being afraid of Bogy in childhood. But here was daylight; here was a healthy, square-shouldered man in tweeds, not odd save for the accident of his ugly spectacles, not glaring or grinning at all, but smiling steadily and not saying a word. The whole had a sense of unbearable reality. Under the increasing sunlight the colours of the Doctor's complexion, the pattern of his tweeds, grew and expanded outrageously, as such things grow too important in a realistic novel. But his smile was quite slight, the pose of his head polite; the only uncanny thing was his silence. "As I say," resumed the Professor, like a man toiling through heavy sand, "the incident that has occurred to us and has led us to ask for information about the Marquis, is one which you may think it better to have narrated; but as it came in the way of Comrade Syme rather than me--" His words he seemed to be dragging out like words in an anthem; but Syme, who was watching, saw his long fingers rattle quickly on the edge of the crazy table. He read the message, "You must go on. This devil has sucked me dry!" Syme plunged into the breach with that bravado of improvisation which always came to him when he was alarmed. "Yes, the thing really happened to me," he said hastily. "I had the good fortune to fall into conversation with a detective who took me, thanks to my hat, for a respectable person. Wishing to clinch my reputation for respectability, I took him and made him very drunk at the Savoy. Under this influence he became friendly, and told me in so many words that within a day or two they hope to arrest the Marquis in France. "So unless you or I can get on his track--" The Doctor was still smiling in the most friendly way, and his protected eyes were still impenetrable. The Professor signalled to Syme that he would resume his explanation, and he began again with the same elaborate calm. "Syme immediately brought this information to me, and we came here together to see what use you would be inclined to make of it. It seems to me unquestionably urgent that--" All this time Syme had been staring at the Doctor almost as steadily as the Doctor stared at the Professor, but quite without the smile. The nerves of both comrades-in-arms were near snapping under that strain of motionless amiability, when Syme suddenly leant forward and idly tapped the edge of the table. His message to his ally ran, "I have an intuition." The Professor, with scarcely a pause in his monologue, signalled back, "Then sit on it." Syme telegraphed, "It is quite extraordinary." The other answered, "Extraordinary rot!" Syme said, "I am a poet." The other retorted, "You are a dead man." Syme had gone quite red up to his yellow hair, and his eyes were burning feverishly. As he said he had an intuition, and it had risen to a sort of lightheaded certainty. Resuming his symbolic taps, he signalled to his friend, "You scarcely realise how poetic my intuition is. It has that sudden quality we sometimes feel in the coming of spring." He then studied the answer on his friend's fingers. The answer was, "Go to hell!" The Professor then resumed his merely verbal monologue addressed to the Doctor. "Perhaps I should rather say," said Syme on his fingers, "that it resembles that sudden smell of the sea which may be found in the heart of lush woods." His companion disdained to reply. "Or yet again," tapped Syme, "it is positive, as is the passionate red hair of a beautiful woman." The Professor was continuing his speech, but in the middle of it Syme decided to act. He leant across the table, and said in a voice that could not be neglected-- "Dr. Bull!" The Doctor's sleek and smiling head did not move, but they could have sworn that under his dark glasses his eyes darted towards Syme. "Dr. Bull," said Syme, in a voice peculiarly precise and courteous, "would you do me a small favour? Would you be so kind as to take off your spectacles?" The Professor swung round on his seat, and stared at Syme with a sort of frozen fury of astonishment. Syme, like a man who has thrown his life and fortune on the table, leaned forward with a fiery face. The Doctor did not move. For a few seconds there was a silence in which one could hear a pin drop, split once by the single hoot of a distant steamer on the Thames. Then Dr. Bull rose slowly, still smiling, and took off his spectacles. Syme sprang to his feet, stepping backwards a little, like a chemical lecturer from a successful explosion. His eyes were like stars, and for an instant he could only point without speaking. The Professor had also started to his feet, forgetful of his supposed paralysis. He leant on the back of the chair and stared doubtfully at Dr. Bull, as if the Doctor had been turned into a toad before his eyes. And indeed it was almost as great a transformation scene. The two detectives saw sitting in the chair before them a very boyish-looking young man, with very frank and happy hazel eyes, an open expression, cockney clothes like those of a city clerk, and an unquestionable breath about him of being very good and rather commonplace. The smile was still there, but it might have been the first smile of a baby. "I knew I was a poet," cried Syme in a sort of ecstasy. "I knew my intuition was as infallible as the Pope. It was the spectacles that did it! It was all the spectacles. Given those beastly black eyes, and all the rest of him his health and his jolly looks, made him a live devil among dead ones." "It certainly does make a queer difference," said the Professor shakily. "But as regards the project of Dr. Bull--" "Project be damned!" roared Syme, beside himself. "Look at him! Look at his face, look at his collar, look at his blessed boots! You don't suppose, do you, that that thing's an anarchist?" "Syme!" cried the other in an apprehensive agony. "Why, by God," said Syme, "I'll take the risk of that myself! Dr. Bull, I am a police officer. There's my card," and he flung down the blue card upon the table. The Professor still feared that all was lost; but he was loyal. He pulled out his own official card and put it beside his friend's. Then the third man burst out laughing, and for the first time that morning they heard his voice. "I'm awfully glad you chaps have come so early," he said, with a sort of schoolboy flippancy, "for we can all start for France together. Yes, I'm in the force right enough," and he flicked a blue card towards them lightly as a matter of form. Clapping a brisk bowler on his head and resuming his goblin glasses, the Doctor moved so quickly towards the door, that the others instinctively followed him. Syme seemed a little distrait, and as he passed under the doorway he suddenly struck his stick on the stone passage so that it rang. "But Lord God Almighty," he cried out, "if this is all right, there were more damned detectives than there were damned dynamiters at the damned Council!" "We might have fought easily," said Bull; "we were four against three." The Professor was descending the stairs, but his voice came up from below. "No," said the voice, "we were not four against three--we were not so lucky. We were four against One." The others went down the stairs in silence. The young man called Bull, with an innocent courtesy characteristic of him, insisted on going last until they reached the street; but there his own robust rapidity asserted itself unconsciously, and he walked quickly on ahead towards a railway inquiry office, talking to the others over his shoulder. "It is jolly to get some pals," he said. "I've been half dead with the jumps, being quite alone. I nearly flung my arms round Gogol and embraced him, which would have been imprudent. I hope you won't despise me for having been in a blue funk." "All the blue devils in blue hell," said Syme, "contributed to my blue funk! But the worst devil was you and your infernal goggles." The young man laughed delightedly. "Wasn't it a rag?" he said. "Such a simple idea--not my own. I haven't got the brains. You see, I wanted to go into the detective service, especially the anti-dynamite business. But for that purpose they wanted someone to dress up as a dynamiter; and they all swore by blazes that I could never look like a dynamiter. They said my very walk was respectable, and that seen from behind I looked like the British Constitution. They said I looked too healthy and too optimistic, and too reliable and benevolent; they called me all sorts of names at Scotland Yard. They said that if I had been a criminal, I might have made my fortune by looking so like an honest man; but as I had the misfortune to be an honest man, there was not even the remotest chance of my assisting them by ever looking like a criminal. But at last I was brought before some old josser who was high up in the force, and who seemed to have no end of a head on his shoulders. And there the others all talked hopelessly. One asked whether a bushy beard would hide my nice smile; another said that if they blacked my face I might look like a negro anarchist; but this old chap chipped in with a most extraordinary remark. 'A pair of smoked spectacles will do it,' he said positively. 'Look at him now; he looks like an angelic office boy. Put him on a pair of smoked spectacles, and children will scream at the sight of him.' And so it was, by George! When once my eyes were covered, all the rest, smile and big shoulders and short hair, made me look a perfect little devil. As I say, it was simple enough when it was done, like miracles; but that wasn't the really miraculous part of it. There was one really staggering thing about the business, and my head still turns at it." "What was that?" asked Syme. "I'll tell you," answered the man in spectacles. "This big pot in the police who sized me up so that he knew how the goggles would go with my hair and socks--by God, he never saw me at all!" Syme's eyes suddenly flashed on him. "How was that?" he asked. "I thought you talked to him." "So I did," said Bull brightly; "but we talked in a pitch-dark room like a coalcellar. There, you would never have guessed that." "I could not have conceived it," said Syme gravely. "It is indeed a new idea," said the Professor. Their new ally was in practical matters a whirlwind. At the inquiry office he asked with businesslike brevity about the trains for Dover. Having got his information, he bundled the company into a cab, and put them and himself inside a railway carriage before they had properly realised the breathless process. They were already on the Calais boat before conversation flowed freely. "I had already arranged," he explained, "to go to France for my lunch; but I am delighted to have someone to lunch with me. You see, I had to send that beast, the Marquis, over with his bomb, because the President had his eye on me, though God knows how. I'll tell you the story some day. It was perfectly choking. Whenever I tried to slip out of it I saw the President somewhere, smiling out of the bow-window of a club, or taking off his hat to me from the top of an omnibus. I tell you, you can say what you like, that fellow sold himself to the devil; he can be in six places at once." "So you sent the Marquis off, I understand," asked the Professor. "Was it long ago? Shall we be in time to catch him?" "Yes," answered the new guide, "I've timed it all. He'll still be at Calais when we arrive." "But when we do catch him at Calais," said the Professor, "what are we going to do?" At this question the countenance of Dr. Bull fell for the first time. He reflected a little, and then said-- "Theoretically, I suppose, we ought to call the police." "Not I," said Syme. "Theoretically I ought to drown myself first. I promised a poor fellow, who was a real modern pessimist, on my word of honour not to tell the police. I'm no hand at casuistry, but I can't break my word to a modern pessimist. It's like breaking one's word to a child." "I'm in the same boat," said the Professor. "I tried to tell the police and I couldn't, because of some silly oath I took. You see, when I was an actor I was a sort of all-round beast. Perjury or treason is the only crime I haven't committed. If I did that I shouldn't know the difference between right and wrong." "I've been through all that," said Dr. Bull, "and I've made up my mind. I gave my promise to the Secretary--you know him, man who smiles upside down. My friends, that man is the most utterly unhappy man that was ever human. It may be his digestion, or his conscience, or his nerves, or his philosophy of the universe, but he's damned, he's in hell! Well, I can't turn on a man like that, and hunt him down. It's like whipping a leper. I may be mad, but that's how I feel; and there's jolly well the end of it." "I don't think you're mad," said Syme. "I knew you would decide like that when first you--" "Eh?" said Dr. Bull. "When first you took off your spectacles." Dr. Bull smiled a little, and strolled across the deck to look at the sunlit sea. Then he strolled back again, kicking his heels carelessly, and a companionable silence fell between the three men. "Well," said Syme, "it seems that we have all the same kind of morality or immorality, so we had better face the fact that comes of it." "Yes," assented the Professor, "you're quite right; and we must hurry up, for I can see the Grey Nose standing out from France." "The fact that comes of it," said Syme seriously, "is this, that we three are alone on this planet. Gogol has gone, God knows where; perhaps the President has smashed him like a fly. On the Council we are three men against three, like the Romans who held the bridge. But we are worse off than that, first because they can appeal to their organization and we cannot appeal to ours, and second because--" "Because one of those other three men," said the Professor, "is not a man." Syme nodded and was silent for a second or two, then he said-- "My idea is this. We must do something to keep the Marquis in Calais till tomorrow midday. I have turned over twenty schemes in my head. We cannot denounce him as a dynamiter; that is agreed. We cannot get him detained on some trivial charge, for we should have to appear; he knows us, and he would smell a rat. We cannot pretend to keep him on anarchist business; he might swallow much in that way, but not the notion of stopping in Calais while the Czar went safely through Paris. We might try to kidnap him, and lock him up ourselves; but he is a well-known man here. He has a whole bodyguard of friends; he is very strong and brave, and the event is doubtful. The only thing I can see to do is actually to take advantage of the very things that are in the Marquis's favour. I am going to profit by the fact that he is a highly respected nobleman. I am going to profit by the fact that he has many friends and moves in the best society." "What the devil are you talking about?" asked the Professor. "The Symes are first mentioned in the fourteenth century," said Syme; "but there is a tradition that one of them rode behind Bruce at Bannockburn. Since 1350 the tree is quite clear." "He's gone off his head," said the little Doctor, staring. "Our bearings," continued Syme calmly, "are 'argent a chevron gules charged with three cross crosslets of the field.' The motto varies." The Professor seized Syme roughly by the waistcoat. "We are just inshore," he said. "Are you seasick or joking in the wrong place?" "My remarks are almost painfully practical," answered Syme, in an unhurried manner. "The house of St. Eustache also is very ancient. The Marquis cannot deny that he is a gentleman. He cannot deny that I am a gentleman. And in order to put the matter of my social position quite beyond a doubt, I propose at the earliest opportunity to knock his hat off. But here we are in the harbour." They went on shore under the strong sun in a sort of daze. Syme, who had now taken the lead as Bull had taken it in London, led them along a kind of marine parade until he came to some cafes, embowered in a bulk of greenery and overlooking the sea. As he went before them his step was slightly swaggering, and he swung his stick like a sword. He was making apparently for the extreme end of the line of cafes, but he stopped abruptly. With a sharp gesture he motioned them to silence, but he pointed with one gloved finger to a cafe table under a bank of flowering foliage at which sat the Marquis de St. Eustache, his teeth shining in his thick, black beard, and his bold, brown face shadowed by a light yellow straw hat and outlined against the violet sea. CHAPTER X. THE DUEL SYME sat down at a cafe table with his companions, his blue eyes sparkling like the bright sea below, and ordered a bottle of Saumur with a pleased impatience. He was for some reason in a condition of curious hilarity. His spirits were already unnaturally high; they rose as the Saumur sank, and in half an hour his talk was a torrent of nonsense. He professed to be making out a plan of the conversation which was going to ensue between himself and the deadly Marquis. He jotted it down wildly with a pencil. It was arranged like a printed catechism, with questions and answers, and was delivered with an extraordinary rapidity of utterance. "I shall approach. Before taking off his hat, I shall take off my own. I shall say, 'The Marquis de Saint Eustache, I believe.' He will say, 'The celebrated Mr. Syme, I presume.' He will say in the most exquisite French, 'How are you?' I shall reply in the most exquisite Cockney, 'Oh, just the Syme--'" "Oh, shut it," said the man in spectacles. "Pull yourself together, and chuck away that bit of paper. What are you really going to do?" "But it was a lovely catechism," said Syme pathetically. "Do let me read it you. It has only forty-three questions and answers, and some of the Marquis's answers are wonderfully witty. I like to be just to my enemy." "But what's the good of it all?" asked Dr. Bull in exasperation. "It leads up to my challenge, don't you see," said Syme, beaming. "When the Marquis has given the thirty-ninth reply, which runs--" "Has it by any chance occurred to you," asked the Professor, with a ponderous simplicity, "that the Marquis may not say all the forty-three things you have put down for him? In that case, I understand, your own epigrams may appear somewhat more forced." Syme struck the table with a radiant face. "Why, how true that is," he said, "and I never thought of it. Sir, you have an intellect beyond the common. You will make a name." "Oh, you're as drunk as an owl!" said the Doctor. "It only remains," continued Syme quite unperturbed, "to adopt some other method of breaking the ice (if I may so express it) between myself and the man I wish to kill. And since the course of a dialogue cannot be predicted by one of its parties alone (as you have pointed out with such recondite acumen), the only thing to be done, I suppose, is for the one party, as far as possible, to do all the dialogue by himself. And so I will, by George!" And he stood up suddenly, his yellow hair blowing in the slight sea breeze. A band was playing in a cafe chantant hidden somewhere among the trees, and a woman had just stopped singing. On Syme's heated head the bray of the brass band seemed like the jar and jingle of that barrel-organ in Leicester Square, to the tune of which he had once stood up to die. He looked across to the little table where the Marquis sat. The man had two companions now, solemn Frenchmen in frock-coats and silk hats, one of them with the red rosette of the Legion of Honour, evidently people of a solid social position. Besides these black, cylindrical costumes, the Marquis, in his loose straw hat and light spring clothes, looked Bohemian and even barbaric; but he looked the Marquis. Indeed, one might say that he looked the king, with his animal elegance, his scornful eyes, and his proud head lifted against the purple sea. But he was no Christian king, at any rate; he was, rather, some swarthy despot, half Greek, half Asiatic, who in the days when slavery seemed natural looked down on the Mediterranean, on his galley and his groaning slaves. Just so, Syme thought, would the brown-gold face of such a tyrant have shown against the dark green olives and the burning blue. "Are you going to address the meeting?" asked the Professor peevishly, seeing that Syme still stood up without moving. Syme drained his last glass of sparkling wine. "I am," he said, pointing across to the Marquis and his companions, "that meeting. That meeting displeases me. I am going to pull that meeting's great ugly, mahogany-coloured nose." He stepped across swiftly, if not quite steadily. The Marquis, seeing him, arched his black Assyrian eyebrows in surprise, but smiled politely. "You are Mr. Syme, I think," he said. Syme bowed. "And you are the Marquis de Saint Eustache," he said gracefully. "Permit me to pull your nose." He leant over to do so, but the Marquis started backwards, upsetting his chair, and the two men in top hats held Syme back by the shoulders. "This man has insulted me!" said Syme, with gestures of explanation. "Insulted you?" cried the gentleman with the red rosette, "when?" "Oh, just now," said Syme recklessly. "He insulted my mother." "Insulted your mother!" exclaimed the gentleman incredulously. "Well, anyhow," said Syme, conceding a point, "my aunt." "But how can the Marquis have insulted your aunt just now?" said the second gentleman with some legitimate wonder. "He has been sitting here all the time." "Ah, it was what he said!" said Syme darkly. "I said nothing at all," said the Marquis, "except something about the band. I only said that I liked Wagner played well." "It was an allusion to my family," said Syme firmly. "My aunt played Wagner badly. It was a painful subject. We are always being insulted about it." "This seems most extraordinary," said the gentleman who was decore, looking doubtfully at the Marquis. "Oh, I assure you," said Syme earnestly, "the whole of your conversation was simply packed with sinister allusions to my aunt's weaknesses." "This is nonsense!" said the second gentleman. "I for one have said nothing for half an hour except that I liked the singing of that girl with black hair." "Well, there you are again!" said Syme indignantly. "My aunt's was red." "It seems to me," said the other, "that you are simply seeking a pretext to insult the Marquis." "By George!" said Syme, facing round and looking at him, "what a clever chap you are!" The Marquis started up with eyes flaming like a tiger's. "Seeking a quarrel with me!" he cried. "Seeking a fight with me! By God! there was never a man who had to seek long. These gentlemen will perhaps act for me. There are still four hours of daylight. Let us fight this evening." Syme bowed with a quite beautiful graciousness. "Marquis," he said, "your action is worthy of your fame and blood. Permit me to consult for a moment with the gentlemen in whose hands I shall place myself." In three long strides he rejoined his companions, and they, who had seen his champagne-inspired attack and listened to his idiotic explanations, were quite startled at the look of him. For now that he came back to them he was quite sober, a little pale, and he spoke in a low voice of passionate practicality. "I have done it," he said hoarsely. "I have fixed a fight on the beast. But look here, and listen carefully. There is no time for talk. You are my seconds, and everything must come from you. Now you must insist, and insist absolutely, on the duel coming off after seven tomorrow, so as to give me the chance of preventing him from catching the 7.45 for Paris. If he misses that he misses his crime. He can't refuse to meet you on such a small point of time and place. But this is what he will do. He will choose a field somewhere near a wayside station, where he can pick up the train. He is a very good swordsman, and he will trust to killing me in time to catch it. But I can fence well too, and I think I can keep him in play, at any rate, until the train is lost. Then perhaps he may kill me to console his feelings. You understand? Very well then, let me introduce you to some charming friends of mine," and leading them quickly across the parade, he presented them to the Marquis's seconds by two very aristocratic names of which they had not previously heard. Syme was subject to spasms of singular common sense, not otherwise a part of his character. They were (as he said of his impulse about the spectacles) poetic intuitions, and they sometimes rose to the exaltation of prophecy. He had correctly calculated in this case the policy of his opponent. When the Marquis was informed by his seconds that Syme could only fight in the morning, he must fully have realised that an obstacle had suddenly arisen between him and his bomb-throwing business in the capital. Naturally he could not explain this objection to his friends, so he chose the course which Syme had predicted. He induced his seconds to settle on a small meadow not far from the railway, and he trusted to the fatality of the first engagement. When he came down very coolly to the field of honour, no one could have guessed that he had any anxiety about a journey; his hands were in his pockets, his straw hat on the back of his head, his handsome face brazen in the sun. But it might have struck a stranger as odd that there appeared in his train, not only his seconds carrying the sword-case, but two of his servants carrying a portmanteau and a luncheon basket. Early as was the hour, the sun soaked everything in warmth, and Syme was vaguely surprised to see so many spring flowers burning gold and silver in the tall grass in which the whole company stood almost knee-deep. With the exception of the Marquis, all the men were in sombre and solemn morning-dress, with hats like black chimney-pots; the little Doctor especially, with the addition of his black spectacles, looked like an undertaker in a farce. Syme could not help feeling a comic contrast between this funereal church parade of apparel and the rich and glistening meadow, growing wild flowers everywhere. But, indeed, this comic contrast between the yellow blossoms and the black hats was but a symbol of the tragic contrast between the yellow blossoms and the black business. On his right was a

pals

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word-- "Please do not think me excessively abrupt; but I advise you to alter those plans, or if it is too late for that, to follow your agent with all the support you can get for him. Comrade Syme and I have had an experience which it would take more time to recount than we can afford, if we are to act on it. I will, however, relate the occurrence in detail, even at the risk of losing time, if you really feel that it is essential to the understanding of the problem we have to discuss." He was spinning out his sentences, making them intolerably long and lingering, in the hope of maddening the practical little Doctor into an explosion of impatience which might show his hand. But the little Doctor continued only to stare and smile, and the monologue was uphill work. Syme began to feel a new sickness and despair. The Doctor's smile and silence were not at all like the cataleptic stare and horrible silence which he had confronted in the Professor half an hour before. About the Professor's makeup and all his antics there was always something merely grotesque, like a gollywog. Syme remembered those wild woes of yesterday as one remembers being afraid of Bogy in childhood. But here was daylight; here was a healthy, square-shouldered man in tweeds, not odd save for the accident of his ugly spectacles, not glaring or grinning at all, but smiling steadily and not saying a word. The whole had a sense of unbearable reality. Under the increasing sunlight the colours of the Doctor's complexion, the pattern of his tweeds, grew and expanded outrageously, as such things grow too important in a realistic novel. But his smile was quite slight, the pose of his head polite; the only uncanny thing was his silence. "As I say," resumed the Professor, like a man toiling through heavy sand, "the incident that has occurred to us and has led us to ask for information about the Marquis, is one which you may think it better to have narrated; but as it came in the way of Comrade Syme rather than me--" His words he seemed to be dragging out like words in an anthem; but Syme, who was watching, saw his long fingers rattle quickly on the edge of the crazy table. He read the message, "You must go on. This devil has sucked me dry!" Syme plunged into the breach with that bravado of improvisation which always came to him when he was alarmed. "Yes, the thing really happened to me," he said hastily. "I had the good fortune to fall into conversation with a detective who took me, thanks to my hat, for a respectable person. Wishing to clinch my reputation for respectability, I took him and made him very drunk at the Savoy. Under this influence he became friendly, and told me in so many words that within a day or two they hope to arrest the Marquis in France. "So unless you or I can get on his track--" The Doctor was still smiling in the most friendly way, and his protected eyes were still impenetrable. The Professor signalled to Syme that he would resume his explanation, and he began again with the same elaborate calm. "Syme immediately brought this information to me, and we came here together to see what use you would be inclined to make of it. It seems to me unquestionably urgent that--" All this time Syme had been staring at the Doctor almost as steadily as the Doctor stared at the Professor, but quite without the smile. The nerves of both comrades-in-arms were near snapping under that strain of motionless amiability, when Syme suddenly leant forward and idly tapped the edge of the table. His message to his ally ran, "I have an intuition." The Professor, with scarcely a pause in his monologue, signalled back, "Then sit on it." Syme telegraphed, "It is quite extraordinary." The other answered, "Extraordinary rot!" Syme said, "I am a poet." The other retorted, "You are a dead man." Syme had gone quite red up to his yellow hair, and his eyes were burning feverishly. As he said he had an intuition, and it had risen to a sort of lightheaded certainty. Resuming his symbolic taps, he signalled to his friend, "You scarcely realise how poetic my intuition is. It has that sudden quality we sometimes feel in the coming of spring." He then studied the answer on his friend's fingers. The answer was, "Go to hell!" The Professor then resumed his merely verbal monologue addressed to the Doctor. "Perhaps I should rather say," said Syme on his fingers, "that it resembles that sudden smell of the sea which may be found in the heart of lush woods." His companion disdained to reply. "Or yet again," tapped Syme, "it is positive, as is the passionate red hair of a beautiful woman." The Professor was continuing his speech, but in the middle of it Syme decided to act. He leant across the table, and said in a voice that could not be neglected-- "Dr. Bull!" The Doctor's sleek and smiling head did not move, but they could have sworn that under his dark glasses his eyes darted towards Syme. "Dr. Bull," said Syme, in a voice peculiarly precise and courteous, "would you do me a small favour? Would you be so kind as to take off your spectacles?" The Professor swung round on his seat, and stared at Syme with a sort of frozen fury of astonishment. Syme, like a man who has thrown his life and fortune on the table, leaned forward with a fiery face. The Doctor did not move. For a few seconds there was a silence in which one could hear a pin drop, split once by the single hoot of a distant steamer on the Thames. Then Dr. Bull rose slowly, still smiling, and took off his spectacles. Syme sprang to his feet, stepping backwards a little, like a chemical lecturer from a successful explosion. His eyes were like stars, and for an instant he could only point without speaking. The Professor had also started to his feet, forgetful of his supposed paralysis. He leant on the back of the chair and stared doubtfully at Dr. Bull, as if the Doctor had been turned into a toad before his eyes. And indeed it was almost as great a transformation scene. The two detectives saw sitting in the chair before them a very boyish-looking young man, with very frank and happy hazel eyes, an open expression, cockney clothes like those of a city clerk, and an unquestionable breath about him of being very good and rather commonplace. The smile was still there, but it might have been the first smile of a baby. "I knew I was a poet," cried Syme in a sort of ecstasy. "I knew my intuition was as infallible as the Pope. It was the spectacles that did it! It was all the spectacles. Given those beastly black eyes, and all the rest of him his health and his jolly looks, made him a live devil among dead ones." "It certainly does make a queer difference," said the Professor shakily. "But as regards the project of Dr. Bull--" "Project be damned!" roared Syme, beside himself. "Look at him! Look at his face, look at his collar, look at his blessed boots! You don't suppose, do you, that that thing's an anarchist?" "Syme!" cried the other in an apprehensive agony. "Why, by God," said Syme, "I'll take the risk of that myself! Dr. Bull, I am a police officer. There's my card," and he flung down the blue card upon the table. The Professor still feared that all was lost; but he was loyal. He pulled out his own official card and put it beside his friend's. Then the third man burst out laughing, and for the first time that morning they heard his voice. "I'm awfully glad you chaps have come so early," he said, with a sort of schoolboy flippancy, "for we can all start for France together. Yes, I'm in the force right enough," and he flicked a blue card towards them lightly as a matter of form. Clapping a brisk bowler on his head and resuming his goblin glasses, the Doctor moved so quickly towards the door, that the others instinctively followed him. Syme seemed a little distrait, and as he passed under the doorway he suddenly struck his stick on the stone passage so that it rang. "But Lord God Almighty," he cried out, "if this is all right, there were more damned detectives than there were damned dynamiters at the damned Council!" "We might have fought easily," said Bull; "we were four against three." The Professor was descending the stairs, but his voice came up from below. "No," said the voice, "we were not four against three--we were not so lucky. We were four against One." The others went down the stairs in silence. The young man called Bull, with an innocent courtesy characteristic of him, insisted on going last until they reached the street; but there his own robust rapidity asserted itself unconsciously, and he walked quickly on ahead towards a railway inquiry office, talking to the others over his shoulder. "It is jolly to get some pals," he said. "I've been half dead with the jumps, being quite alone. I nearly flung my arms round Gogol and embraced him, which would have been imprudent. I hope you won't despise me for having been in a blue funk." "All the blue devils in blue hell," said Syme, "contributed to my blue funk! But the worst devil was you and your infernal goggles." The young man laughed delightedly. "Wasn't it a rag?" he said. "Such a simple idea--not my own. I haven't got the brains. You see, I wanted to go into the detective service, especially the anti-dynamite business. But for that purpose they wanted someone to dress up as a dynamiter; and they all swore by blazes that I could never look like a dynamiter. They said my very walk was respectable, and that seen from behind I looked like the British Constitution. They said I looked too healthy and too optimistic, and too reliable and benevolent; they called me all sorts of names at Scotland Yard. They said that if I had been a criminal, I might have made my fortune by looking so like an honest man; but as I had the misfortune to be an honest man, there was not even the remotest chance of my assisting them by ever looking like a criminal. But at last I was brought before some old josser who was high up in the force, and who seemed to have no end of a head on his shoulders. And there the others all talked hopelessly. One asked whether a bushy beard would hide my nice smile; another said that if they blacked my face I might look like a negro anarchist; but this old chap chipped in with a most extraordinary remark. 'A pair of smoked spectacles will do it,' he said positively. 'Look at him now; he looks like an angelic office boy. Put him on a pair of smoked spectacles, and children will scream at the sight of him.' And so it was, by George! When once my eyes were covered, all the rest, smile and big shoulders and short hair, made me look a perfect little devil. As I say, it was simple enough when it was done, like miracles; but that wasn't the really miraculous part of it. There was one really staggering thing about the business, and my head still turns at it." "What was that?" asked Syme. "I'll tell you," answered the man in spectacles. "This big pot in the police who sized me up so that he knew how the goggles would go with my hair and socks--by God, he never saw me at all!" Syme's eyes suddenly flashed on him. "How was that?" he asked. "I thought you talked to him." "So I did," said Bull brightly; "but we talked in a pitch-dark room like a coalcellar. There, you would never have guessed that." "I could not have conceived it," said Syme gravely. "It is indeed a new idea," said the Professor. Their new ally was in practical matters a whirlwind. At the inquiry office he asked with businesslike brevity about the trains for Dover. Having got his information, he bundled the company into a cab, and put them and himself inside a railway carriage before they had properly realised the breathless process. They were already on the Calais boat before conversation flowed freely. "I had already arranged," he explained, "to go to France for my lunch; but I am delighted to have someone to lunch with me. You see, I had to send that beast, the Marquis, over with his bomb, because the President had his eye on me, though God knows how. I'll tell you the story some day. It was perfectly choking. Whenever I tried to slip out of it I saw the President somewhere, smiling out of the bow-window of a club, or taking off his hat to me from the top of an omnibus. I tell you, you can say what you like, that fellow sold himself to the devil; he can be in six places at once." "So you sent the Marquis off, I understand," asked the Professor. "Was it long ago? Shall we be in time to catch him?" "Yes," answered the new guide, "I've timed it all. He'll still be at Calais when we arrive." "But when we do catch him at Calais," said the Professor, "what are we going to do?" At this question the countenance of Dr. Bull fell for the first time. He reflected a little, and then said-- "Theoretically, I suppose, we ought to call the police." "Not I," said Syme. "Theoretically I ought to drown myself first. I promised a poor fellow, who was a real modern pessimist, on my word of honour not to tell the police. I'm no hand at casuistry, but I can't break my word to a modern pessimist. It's like breaking one's word to a child." "I'm in the same boat," said the Professor. "I tried to tell the police and I couldn't, because of some silly oath I took. You see, when I was an actor I was a sort of all-round beast. Perjury or treason is the only crime I haven't committed. If I did that I shouldn't know the difference between right and wrong." "I've been through all that," said Dr. Bull, "and I've made up my mind. I gave my promise to the Secretary--you know him, man who smiles upside down. My friends, that man is the most utterly unhappy man that was ever human. It may be his digestion, or his conscience, or his nerves, or his philosophy of the universe, but he's damned, he's in hell! Well, I can't turn on a man like that, and hunt him down. It's like whipping a leper. I may be mad, but that's how I feel; and there's jolly well the end of it." "I don't think you're mad," said Syme. "I knew you would decide like that when first you--" "Eh?" said Dr. Bull. "When first you took off your spectacles." Dr. Bull smiled a little, and strolled across the deck to look at the sunlit sea. Then he strolled back again, kicking his heels carelessly, and a companionable silence fell between the three men. "Well," said Syme, "it seems that we have all the same kind of morality or immorality, so we had better face the fact that comes of it." "Yes," assented the Professor, "you're quite right; and we must hurry up, for I can see the Grey Nose standing out from France." "The fact that comes of it," said Syme seriously, "is this, that we three are alone on this planet. Gogol has gone, God knows where; perhaps the President has smashed him like a fly. On the Council we are three men against three, like the Romans who held the bridge. But we are worse off than that, first because they can appeal to their organization and we cannot appeal to ours, and second because--" "Because one of those other three men," said the Professor, "is not a man." Syme nodded and was silent for a second or two, then he said-- "My idea is this. We must do something to keep the Marquis in Calais till tomorrow midday. I have turned over twenty schemes in my head. We cannot denounce him as a dynamiter; that is agreed. We cannot get him detained on some trivial charge, for we should have to appear; he knows us, and he would smell a rat. We cannot pretend to keep him on anarchist business; he might swallow much in that way, but not the notion of stopping in Calais while the Czar went safely through Paris. We might try to kidnap him, and lock him up ourselves; but he is a well-known man here. He has a whole bodyguard of friends; he is very strong and brave, and the event is doubtful. The only thing I can see to do is actually to take advantage of the very things that are in the Marquis's favour. I am going to profit by the fact that he is a highly respected nobleman. I am going to profit by the fact that he has many friends and moves in the best society." "What the devil are you talking about?" asked the Professor. "The Symes are first mentioned in the fourteenth century," said Syme; "but there is a tradition that one of them rode behind Bruce at Bannockburn. Since 1350 the tree is quite clear." "He's gone off his head," said the little Doctor, staring. "Our bearings," continued Syme calmly, "are 'argent a chevron gules charged with three cross crosslets of the field.' The motto varies." The Professor seized Syme roughly by the waistcoat. "We are just inshore," he said. "Are you seasick or joking in the wrong place?" "My remarks are almost painfully practical," answered Syme, in an unhurried manner. "The house of St. Eustache also is very ancient. The Marquis cannot deny that he is a gentleman. He cannot deny that I am a gentleman. And in order to put the matter of my social position quite beyond a doubt, I propose at the earliest opportunity to knock his hat off. But here we are in the harbour." They went on shore under the strong sun in a sort of daze. Syme, who had now taken the lead as Bull had taken it in London, led them along a kind of marine parade until he came to some cafes, embowered in a bulk of greenery and overlooking the sea. As he went before them his step was slightly swaggering, and he swung his stick like a sword. He was making apparently for the extreme end of the line of cafes, but he stopped abruptly. With a sharp gesture he motioned them to silence, but he pointed with one gloved finger to a cafe table under a bank of flowering foliage at which sat the Marquis de St. Eustache, his teeth shining in his thick, black beard, and his bold, brown face shadowed by a light yellow straw hat and outlined against the violet sea. CHAPTER X. THE DUEL SYME sat down at a cafe table with his companions, his blue eyes sparkling like the bright sea below, and ordered a bottle of Saumur with a pleased impatience. He was for some reason in a condition of curious hilarity. His spirits were already unnaturally high; they rose as the Saumur sank, and in half an hour his talk was a torrent of nonsense. He professed to be making out a plan of the conversation which was going to ensue between himself and the deadly Marquis. He jotted it down wildly with a pencil. It was arranged like a printed catechism, with questions and answers, and was delivered with an extraordinary rapidity of utterance. "I shall approach. Before taking off his hat, I shall take off my own. I shall say, 'The Marquis de Saint Eustache, I believe.' He will say, 'The celebrated Mr. Syme, I presume.' He will say in the most exquisite French, 'How are you?' I shall reply in the most exquisite Cockney, 'Oh, just the Syme--'" "Oh, shut it," said the man in spectacles. "Pull yourself together, and chuck away that bit of paper. What are you really going to do?" "But it was a lovely catechism," said Syme pathetically. "Do let me read it you. It has only forty-three questions and answers, and some of the Marquis's answers are wonderfully witty. I like to be just to my enemy." "But what's the good of it all?" asked Dr. Bull in exasperation. "It leads up to my challenge, don't you see," said Syme, beaming. "When the Marquis has given the thirty-ninth reply, which runs--" "Has it by any chance occurred to you," asked the Professor, with a ponderous simplicity, "that the Marquis may not say all the forty-three things you have put down for him? In that case, I understand, your own epigrams may appear somewhat more forced." Syme struck the table with a radiant face. "Why, how true that is," he said, "and I never thought of it. Sir, you have an intellect beyond the common. You will make a name." "Oh, you're as drunk as an owl!" said the Doctor. "It only remains," continued Syme quite unperturbed, "to adopt some other method of breaking the ice (if I may so express it) between myself and the man I wish to kill. And since the course of a dialogue cannot be predicted by one of its parties alone (as you have pointed out with such recondite acumen), the only thing to be done, I suppose, is for the one party, as far as possible, to do all the dialogue by himself. And so I will, by George!" And he stood up suddenly, his yellow hair blowing in the slight sea breeze. A band was playing in a cafe chantant hidden somewhere among the trees, and a woman had just stopped singing. On Syme's heated head the bray of the brass band seemed like the jar and jingle of that barrel-organ in Leicester Square, to the tune of which he had once stood up to die. He looked across to the little table where the Marquis sat. The man had two companions now, solemn Frenchmen in frock-coats and silk hats, one of them with the red rosette of the Legion of Honour, evidently people of a solid social position. Besides these black, cylindrical costumes, the Marquis, in his loose straw hat and light spring clothes, looked Bohemian and even barbaric; but he looked the Marquis. Indeed, one might say that he looked the king, with his animal elegance, his scornful eyes, and his proud head lifted against the purple sea. But he was no Christian king, at any rate; he was, rather, some swarthy despot, half Greek, half Asiatic, who in the days when slavery seemed natural looked down on the Mediterranean, on his galley and his groaning slaves. Just so, Syme thought, would the brown-gold face of such a tyrant have shown against the dark green olives and the burning blue. "Are you going to address the meeting?" asked the Professor peevishly, seeing that Syme still stood up without moving. Syme drained his last glass of sparkling wine. "I am," he said, pointing across to the Marquis and his companions, "that meeting. That meeting displeases me. I am going to pull that meeting's great ugly, mahogany-coloured nose." He stepped across swiftly, if not quite steadily. The Marquis, seeing him, arched his black Assyrian eyebrows in surprise, but smiled politely. "You are Mr. Syme, I think," he said. Syme bowed. "And you are the Marquis de Saint Eustache," he said gracefully. "Permit me to pull your nose." He leant over to do so, but the Marquis started backwards, upsetting his chair, and the two men in top hats held Syme back by the shoulders. "This man has insulted me!" said Syme, with gestures of explanation. "Insulted you?" cried the gentleman with the red rosette, "when?" "Oh, just now," said Syme recklessly. "He insulted my mother." "Insulted your mother!" exclaimed the gentleman incredulously. "Well, anyhow," said Syme, conceding a point, "my aunt." "But how can the Marquis have insulted your aunt just now?" said the second gentleman with some legitimate wonder. "He has been sitting here all the time." "Ah, it was what he said!" said Syme darkly. "I said nothing at all," said the Marquis, "except something about the band. I only said that I liked Wagner played well." "It was an allusion to my family," said Syme firmly. "My aunt played Wagner badly. It was a painful subject. We are always being insulted about it." "This seems most extraordinary," said the gentleman who was decore, looking doubtfully at the Marquis. "Oh, I assure you," said Syme earnestly, "the whole of your conversation was simply packed with sinister allusions to my aunt's weaknesses." "This is nonsense!" said the second gentleman. "I for one have said nothing for half an hour except that I liked the singing of that girl with black hair." "Well, there you are again!" said Syme indignantly. "My aunt's was red." "It seems to me," said the other, "that you are simply seeking a pretext to insult the Marquis." "By George!" said Syme, facing round and looking at him, "what a clever chap you are!" The Marquis started up with eyes flaming like a tiger's. "Seeking a quarrel with me!" he cried. "Seeking a fight with me! By God! there was never a man who had to seek long. These gentlemen will perhaps act for me. There are still four hours of daylight. Let us fight this evening." Syme bowed with a quite beautiful graciousness. "Marquis," he said, "your action is worthy of your fame and blood. Permit me to consult for a moment with the gentlemen in whose hands I shall place myself." In three long strides he rejoined his companions, and they, who had seen his champagne-inspired attack and listened to his idiotic explanations, were quite startled at the look of him. For now that he came back to them he was quite sober, a little pale, and he spoke in a low voice of passionate practicality. "I have done it," he said hoarsely. "I have fixed a fight on the beast. But look here, and listen carefully. There is no time for talk. You are my seconds, and everything must come from you. Now you must insist, and insist absolutely, on the duel coming off after seven tomorrow, so as to give me the chance of preventing him from catching the 7.45 for Paris. If he misses that he misses his crime. He can't refuse to meet you on such a small point of time and place. But this is what he will do. He will choose a field somewhere near a wayside station, where he can pick up the train. He is a very good swordsman, and he will trust to killing me in time to catch it. But I can fence well too, and I think I can keep him in play, at any rate, until the train is lost. Then perhaps he may kill me to console his feelings. You understand? Very well then, let me introduce you to some charming friends of mine," and leading them quickly across the parade, he presented them to the Marquis's seconds by two very aristocratic names of which they had not previously heard. Syme was subject to spasms of singular common sense, not otherwise a part of his character. They were (as he said of his impulse about the spectacles) poetic intuitions, and they sometimes rose to the exaltation of prophecy. He had correctly calculated in this case the policy of his opponent. When the Marquis was informed by his seconds that Syme could only fight in the morning, he must fully have realised that an obstacle had suddenly arisen between him and his bomb-throwing business in the capital. Naturally he could not explain this objection to his friends, so he chose the course which Syme had predicted. He induced his seconds to settle on a small meadow not far from the railway, and he trusted to the fatality of the first engagement. When he came down very coolly to the field of honour, no one could have guessed that he had any anxiety about a journey; his hands were in his pockets, his straw hat on the back of his head, his handsome face brazen in the sun. But it might have struck a stranger as odd that there appeared in his train, not only his seconds carrying the sword-case, but two of his servants carrying a portmanteau and a luncheon basket. Early as was the hour, the sun soaked everything in warmth, and Syme was vaguely surprised to see so many spring flowers burning gold and silver in the tall grass in which the whole company stood almost knee-deep. With the exception of the Marquis, all the men were in sombre and solemn morning-dress, with hats like black chimney-pots; the little Doctor especially, with the addition of his black spectacles, looked like an undertaker in a farce. Syme could not help feeling a comic contrast between this funereal church parade of apparel and the rich and glistening meadow, growing wild flowers everywhere. But, indeed, this comic contrast between the yellow blossoms and the black hats was but a symbol of the tragic contrast between the yellow blossoms and the black business. On his right was a

reported

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word-- "Please do not think me excessively abrupt; but I advise you to alter those plans, or if it is too late for that, to follow your agent with all the support you can get for him. Comrade Syme and I have had an experience which it would take more time to recount than we can afford, if we are to act on it. I will, however, relate the occurrence in detail, even at the risk of losing time, if you really feel that it is essential to the understanding of the problem we have to discuss." He was spinning out his sentences, making them intolerably long and lingering, in the hope of maddening the practical little Doctor into an explosion of impatience which might show his hand. But the little Doctor continued only to stare and smile, and the monologue was uphill work. Syme began to feel a new sickness and despair. The Doctor's smile and silence were not at all like the cataleptic stare and horrible silence which he had confronted in the Professor half an hour before. About the Professor's makeup and all his antics there was always something merely grotesque, like a gollywog. Syme remembered those wild woes of yesterday as one remembers being afraid of Bogy in childhood. But here was daylight; here was a healthy, square-shouldered man in tweeds, not odd save for the accident of his ugly spectacles, not glaring or grinning at all, but smiling steadily and not saying a word. The whole had a sense of unbearable reality. Under the increasing sunlight the colours of the Doctor's complexion, the pattern of his tweeds, grew and expanded outrageously, as such things grow too important in a realistic novel. But his smile was quite slight, the pose of his head polite; the only uncanny thing was his silence. "As I say," resumed the Professor, like a man toiling through heavy sand, "the incident that has occurred to us and has led us to ask for information about the Marquis, is one which you may think it better to have narrated; but as it came in the way of Comrade Syme rather than me--" His words he seemed to be dragging out like words in an anthem; but Syme, who was watching, saw his long fingers rattle quickly on the edge of the crazy table. He read the message, "You must go on. This devil has sucked me dry!" Syme plunged into the breach with that bravado of improvisation which always came to him when he was alarmed. "Yes, the thing really happened to me," he said hastily. "I had the good fortune to fall into conversation with a detective who took me, thanks to my hat, for a respectable person. Wishing to clinch my reputation for respectability, I took him and made him very drunk at the Savoy. Under this influence he became friendly, and told me in so many words that within a day or two they hope to arrest the Marquis in France. "So unless you or I can get on his track--" The Doctor was still smiling in the most friendly way, and his protected eyes were still impenetrable. The Professor signalled to Syme that he would resume his explanation, and he began again with the same elaborate calm. "Syme immediately brought this information to me, and we came here together to see what use you would be inclined to make of it. It seems to me unquestionably urgent that--" All this time Syme had been staring at the Doctor almost as steadily as the Doctor stared at the Professor, but quite without the smile. The nerves of both comrades-in-arms were near snapping under that strain of motionless amiability, when Syme suddenly leant forward and idly tapped the edge of the table. His message to his ally ran, "I have an intuition." The Professor, with scarcely a pause in his monologue, signalled back, "Then sit on it." Syme telegraphed, "It is quite extraordinary." The other answered, "Extraordinary rot!" Syme said, "I am a poet." The other retorted, "You are a dead man." Syme had gone quite red up to his yellow hair, and his eyes were burning feverishly. As he said he had an intuition, and it had risen to a sort of lightheaded certainty. Resuming his symbolic taps, he signalled to his friend, "You scarcely realise how poetic my intuition is. It has that sudden quality we sometimes feel in the coming of spring." He then studied the answer on his friend's fingers. The answer was, "Go to hell!" The Professor then resumed his merely verbal monologue addressed to the Doctor. "Perhaps I should rather say," said Syme on his fingers, "that it resembles that sudden smell of the sea which may be found in the heart of lush woods." His companion disdained to reply. "Or yet again," tapped Syme, "it is positive, as is the passionate red hair of a beautiful woman." The Professor was continuing his speech, but in the middle of it Syme decided to act. He leant across the table, and said in a voice that could not be neglected-- "Dr. Bull!" The Doctor's sleek and smiling head did not move, but they could have sworn that under his dark glasses his eyes darted towards Syme. "Dr. Bull," said Syme, in a voice peculiarly precise and courteous, "would you do me a small favour? Would you be so kind as to take off your spectacles?" The Professor swung round on his seat, and stared at Syme with a sort of frozen fury of astonishment. Syme, like a man who has thrown his life and fortune on the table, leaned forward with a fiery face. The Doctor did not move. For a few seconds there was a silence in which one could hear a pin drop, split once by the single hoot of a distant steamer on the Thames. Then Dr. Bull rose slowly, still smiling, and took off his spectacles. Syme sprang to his feet, stepping backwards a little, like a chemical lecturer from a successful explosion. His eyes were like stars, and for an instant he could only point without speaking. The Professor had also started to his feet, forgetful of his supposed paralysis. He leant on the back of the chair and stared doubtfully at Dr. Bull, as if the Doctor had been turned into a toad before his eyes. And indeed it was almost as great a transformation scene. The two detectives saw sitting in the chair before them a very boyish-looking young man, with very frank and happy hazel eyes, an open expression, cockney clothes like those of a city clerk, and an unquestionable breath about him of being very good and rather commonplace. The smile was still there, but it might have been the first smile of a baby. "I knew I was a poet," cried Syme in a sort of ecstasy. "I knew my intuition was as infallible as the Pope. It was the spectacles that did it! It was all the spectacles. Given those beastly black eyes, and all the rest of him his health and his jolly looks, made him a live devil among dead ones." "It certainly does make a queer difference," said the Professor shakily. "But as regards the project of Dr. Bull--" "Project be damned!" roared Syme, beside himself. "Look at him! Look at his face, look at his collar, look at his blessed boots! You don't suppose, do you, that that thing's an anarchist?" "Syme!" cried the other in an apprehensive agony. "Why, by God," said Syme, "I'll take the risk of that myself! Dr. Bull, I am a police officer. There's my card," and he flung down the blue card upon the table. The Professor still feared that all was lost; but he was loyal. He pulled out his own official card and put it beside his friend's. Then the third man burst out laughing, and for the first time that morning they heard his voice. "I'm awfully glad you chaps have come so early," he said, with a sort of schoolboy flippancy, "for we can all start for France together. Yes, I'm in the force right enough," and he flicked a blue card towards them lightly as a matter of form. Clapping a brisk bowler on his head and resuming his goblin glasses, the Doctor moved so quickly towards the door, that the others instinctively followed him. Syme seemed a little distrait, and as he passed under the doorway he suddenly struck his stick on the stone passage so that it rang. "But Lord God Almighty," he cried out, "if this is all right, there were more damned detectives than there were damned dynamiters at the damned Council!" "We might have fought easily," said Bull; "we were four against three." The Professor was descending the stairs, but his voice came up from below. "No," said the voice, "we were not four against three--we were not so lucky. We were four against One." The others went down the stairs in silence. The young man called Bull, with an innocent courtesy characteristic of him, insisted on going last until they reached the street; but there his own robust rapidity asserted itself unconsciously, and he walked quickly on ahead towards a railway inquiry office, talking to the others over his shoulder. "It is jolly to get some pals," he said. "I've been half dead with the jumps, being quite alone. I nearly flung my arms round Gogol and embraced him, which would have been imprudent. I hope you won't despise me for having been in a blue funk." "All the blue devils in blue hell," said Syme, "contributed to my blue funk! But the worst devil was you and your infernal goggles." The young man laughed delightedly. "Wasn't it a rag?" he said. "Such a simple idea--not my own. I haven't got the brains. You see, I wanted to go into the detective service, especially the anti-dynamite business. But for that purpose they wanted someone to dress up as a dynamiter; and they all swore by blazes that I could never look like a dynamiter. They said my very walk was respectable, and that seen from behind I looked like the British Constitution. They said I looked too healthy and too optimistic, and too reliable and benevolent; they called me all sorts of names at Scotland Yard. They said that if I had been a criminal, I might have made my fortune by looking so like an honest man; but as I had the misfortune to be an honest man, there was not even the remotest chance of my assisting them by ever looking like a criminal. But at last I was brought before some old josser who was high up in the force, and who seemed to have no end of a head on his shoulders. And there the others all talked hopelessly. One asked whether a bushy beard would hide my nice smile; another said that if they blacked my face I might look like a negro anarchist; but this old chap chipped in with a most extraordinary remark. 'A pair of smoked spectacles will do it,' he said positively. 'Look at him now; he looks like an angelic office boy. Put him on a pair of smoked spectacles, and children will scream at the sight of him.' And so it was, by George! When once my eyes were covered, all the rest, smile and big shoulders and short hair, made me look a perfect little devil. As I say, it was simple enough when it was done, like miracles; but that wasn't the really miraculous part of it. There was one really staggering thing about the business, and my head still turns at it." "What was that?" asked Syme. "I'll tell you," answered the man in spectacles. "This big pot in the police who sized me up so that he knew how the goggles would go with my hair and socks--by God, he never saw me at all!" Syme's eyes suddenly flashed on him. "How was that?" he asked. "I thought you talked to him." "So I did," said Bull brightly; "but we talked in a pitch-dark room like a coalcellar. There, you would never have guessed that." "I could not have conceived it," said Syme gravely. "It is indeed a new idea," said the Professor. Their new ally was in practical matters a whirlwind. At the inquiry office he asked with businesslike brevity about the trains for Dover. Having got his information, he bundled the company into a cab, and put them and himself inside a railway carriage before they had properly realised the breathless process. They were already on the Calais boat before conversation flowed freely. "I had already arranged," he explained, "to go to France for my lunch; but I am delighted to have someone to lunch with me. You see, I had to send that beast, the Marquis, over with his bomb, because the President had his eye on me, though God knows how. I'll tell you the story some day. It was perfectly choking. Whenever I tried to slip out of it I saw the President somewhere, smiling out of the bow-window of a club, or taking off his hat to me from the top of an omnibus. I tell you, you can say what you like, that fellow sold himself to the devil; he can be in six places at once." "So you sent the Marquis off, I understand," asked the Professor. "Was it long ago? Shall we be in time to catch him?" "Yes," answered the new guide, "I've timed it all. He'll still be at Calais when we arrive." "But when we do catch him at Calais," said the Professor, "what are we going to do?" At this question the countenance of Dr. Bull fell for the first time. He reflected a little, and then said-- "Theoretically, I suppose, we ought to call the police." "Not I," said Syme. "Theoretically I ought to drown myself first. I promised a poor fellow, who was a real modern pessimist, on my word of honour not to tell the police. I'm no hand at casuistry, but I can't break my word to a modern pessimist. It's like breaking one's word to a child." "I'm in the same boat," said the Professor. "I tried to tell the police and I couldn't, because of some silly oath I took. You see, when I was an actor I was a sort of all-round beast. Perjury or treason is the only crime I haven't committed. If I did that I shouldn't know the difference between right and wrong." "I've been through all that," said Dr. Bull, "and I've made up my mind. I gave my promise to the Secretary--you know him, man who smiles upside down. My friends, that man is the most utterly unhappy man that was ever human. It may be his digestion, or his conscience, or his nerves, or his philosophy of the universe, but he's damned, he's in hell! Well, I can't turn on a man like that, and hunt him down. It's like whipping a leper. I may be mad, but that's how I feel; and there's jolly well the end of it." "I don't think you're mad," said Syme. "I knew you would decide like that when first you--" "Eh?" said Dr. Bull. "When first you took off your spectacles." Dr. Bull smiled a little, and strolled across the deck to look at the sunlit sea. Then he strolled back again, kicking his heels carelessly, and a companionable silence fell between the three men. "Well," said Syme, "it seems that we have all the same kind of morality or immorality, so we had better face the fact that comes of it." "Yes," assented the Professor, "you're quite right; and we must hurry up, for I can see the Grey Nose standing out from France." "The fact that comes of it," said Syme seriously, "is this, that we three are alone on this planet. Gogol has gone, God knows where; perhaps the President has smashed him like a fly. On the Council we are three men against three, like the Romans who held the bridge. But we are worse off than that, first because they can appeal to their organization and we cannot appeal to ours, and second because--" "Because one of those other three men," said the Professor, "is not a man." Syme nodded and was silent for a second or two, then he said-- "My idea is this. We must do something to keep the Marquis in Calais till tomorrow midday. I have turned over twenty schemes in my head. We cannot denounce him as a dynamiter; that is agreed. We cannot get him detained on some trivial charge, for we should have to appear; he knows us, and he would smell a rat. We cannot pretend to keep him on anarchist business; he might swallow much in that way, but not the notion of stopping in Calais while the Czar went safely through Paris. We might try to kidnap him, and lock him up ourselves; but he is a well-known man here. He has a whole bodyguard of friends; he is very strong and brave, and the event is doubtful. The only thing I can see to do is actually to take advantage of the very things that are in the Marquis's favour. I am going to profit by the fact that he is a highly respected nobleman. I am going to profit by the fact that he has many friends and moves in the best society." "What the devil are you talking about?" asked the Professor. "The Symes are first mentioned in the fourteenth century," said Syme; "but there is a tradition that one of them rode behind Bruce at Bannockburn. Since 1350 the tree is quite clear." "He's gone off his head," said the little Doctor, staring. "Our bearings," continued Syme calmly, "are 'argent a chevron gules charged with three cross crosslets of the field.' The motto varies." The Professor seized Syme roughly by the waistcoat. "We are just inshore," he said. "Are you seasick or joking in the wrong place?" "My remarks are almost painfully practical," answered Syme, in an unhurried manner. "The house of St. Eustache also is very ancient. The Marquis cannot deny that he is a gentleman. He cannot deny that I am a gentleman. And in order to put the matter of my social position quite beyond a doubt, I propose at the earliest opportunity to knock his hat off. But here we are in the harbour." They went on shore under the strong sun in a sort of daze. Syme, who had now taken the lead as Bull had taken it in London, led them along a kind of marine parade until he came to some cafes, embowered in a bulk of greenery and overlooking the sea. As he went before them his step was slightly swaggering, and he swung his stick like a sword. He was making apparently for the extreme end of the line of cafes, but he stopped abruptly. With a sharp gesture he motioned them to silence, but he pointed with one gloved finger to a cafe table under a bank of flowering foliage at which sat the Marquis de St. Eustache, his teeth shining in his thick, black beard, and his bold, brown face shadowed by a light yellow straw hat and outlined against the violet sea. CHAPTER X. THE DUEL SYME sat down at a cafe table with his companions, his blue eyes sparkling like the bright sea below, and ordered a bottle of Saumur with a pleased impatience. He was for some reason in a condition of curious hilarity. His spirits were already unnaturally high; they rose as the Saumur sank, and in half an hour his talk was a torrent of nonsense. He professed to be making out a plan of the conversation which was going to ensue between himself and the deadly Marquis. He jotted it down wildly with a pencil. It was arranged like a printed catechism, with questions and answers, and was delivered with an extraordinary rapidity of utterance. "I shall approach. Before taking off his hat, I shall take off my own. I shall say, 'The Marquis de Saint Eustache, I believe.' He will say, 'The celebrated Mr. Syme, I presume.' He will say in the most exquisite French, 'How are you?' I shall reply in the most exquisite Cockney, 'Oh, just the Syme--'" "Oh, shut it," said the man in spectacles. "Pull yourself together, and chuck away that bit of paper. What are you really going to do?" "But it was a lovely catechism," said Syme pathetically. "Do let me read it you. It has only forty-three questions and answers, and some of the Marquis's answers are wonderfully witty. I like to be just to my enemy." "But what's the good of it all?" asked Dr. Bull in exasperation. "It leads up to my challenge, don't you see," said Syme, beaming. "When the Marquis has given the thirty-ninth reply, which runs--" "Has it by any chance occurred to you," asked the Professor, with a ponderous simplicity, "that the Marquis may not say all the forty-three things you have put down for him? In that case, I understand, your own epigrams may appear somewhat more forced." Syme struck the table with a radiant face. "Why, how true that is," he said, "and I never thought of it. Sir, you have an intellect beyond the common. You will make a name." "Oh, you're as drunk as an owl!" said the Doctor. "It only remains," continued Syme quite unperturbed, "to adopt some other method of breaking the ice (if I may so express it) between myself and the man I wish to kill. And since the course of a dialogue cannot be predicted by one of its parties alone (as you have pointed out with such recondite acumen), the only thing to be done, I suppose, is for the one party, as far as possible, to do all the dialogue by himself. And so I will, by George!" And he stood up suddenly, his yellow hair blowing in the slight sea breeze. A band was playing in a cafe chantant hidden somewhere among the trees, and a woman had just stopped singing. On Syme's heated head the bray of the brass band seemed like the jar and jingle of that barrel-organ in Leicester Square, to the tune of which he had once stood up to die. He looked across to the little table where the Marquis sat. The man had two companions now, solemn Frenchmen in frock-coats and silk hats, one of them with the red rosette of the Legion of Honour, evidently people of a solid social position. Besides these black, cylindrical costumes, the Marquis, in his loose straw hat and light spring clothes, looked Bohemian and even barbaric; but he looked the Marquis. Indeed, one might say that he looked the king, with his animal elegance, his scornful eyes, and his proud head lifted against the purple sea. But he was no Christian king, at any rate; he was, rather, some swarthy despot, half Greek, half Asiatic, who in the days when slavery seemed natural looked down on the Mediterranean, on his galley and his groaning slaves. Just so, Syme thought, would the brown-gold face of such a tyrant have shown against the dark green olives and the burning blue. "Are you going to address the meeting?" asked the Professor peevishly, seeing that Syme still stood up without moving. Syme drained his last glass of sparkling wine. "I am," he said, pointing across to the Marquis and his companions, "that meeting. That meeting displeases me. I am going to pull that meeting's great ugly, mahogany-coloured nose." He stepped across swiftly, if not quite steadily. The Marquis, seeing him, arched his black Assyrian eyebrows in surprise, but smiled politely. "You are Mr. Syme, I think," he said. Syme bowed. "And you are the Marquis de Saint Eustache," he said gracefully. "Permit me to pull your nose." He leant over to do so, but the Marquis started backwards, upsetting his chair, and the two men in top hats held Syme back by the shoulders. "This man has insulted me!" said Syme, with gestures of explanation. "Insulted you?" cried the gentleman with the red rosette, "when?" "Oh, just now," said Syme recklessly. "He insulted my mother." "Insulted your mother!" exclaimed the gentleman incredulously. "Well, anyhow," said Syme, conceding a point, "my aunt." "But how can the Marquis have insulted your aunt just now?" said the second gentleman with some legitimate wonder. "He has been sitting here all the time." "Ah, it was what he said!" said Syme darkly. "I said nothing at all," said the Marquis, "except something about the band. I only said that I liked Wagner played well." "It was an allusion to my family," said Syme firmly. "My aunt played Wagner badly. It was a painful subject. We are always being insulted about it." "This seems most extraordinary," said the gentleman who was decore, looking doubtfully at the Marquis. "Oh, I assure you," said Syme earnestly, "the whole of your conversation was simply packed with sinister allusions to my aunt's weaknesses." "This is nonsense!" said the second gentleman. "I for one have said nothing for half an hour except that I liked the singing of that girl with black hair." "Well, there you are again!" said Syme indignantly. "My aunt's was red." "It seems to me," said the other, "that you are simply seeking a pretext to insult the Marquis." "By George!" said Syme, facing round and looking at him, "what a clever chap you are!" The Marquis started up with eyes flaming like a tiger's. "Seeking a quarrel with me!" he cried. "Seeking a fight with me! By God! there was never a man who had to seek long. These gentlemen will perhaps act for me. There are still four hours of daylight. Let us fight this evening." Syme bowed with a quite beautiful graciousness. "Marquis," he said, "your action is worthy of your fame and blood. Permit me to consult for a moment with the gentlemen in whose hands I shall place myself." In three long strides he rejoined his companions, and they, who had seen his champagne-inspired attack and listened to his idiotic explanations, were quite startled at the look of him. For now that he came back to them he was quite sober, a little pale, and he spoke in a low voice of passionate practicality. "I have done it," he said hoarsely. "I have fixed a fight on the beast. But look here, and listen carefully. There is no time for talk. You are my seconds, and everything must come from you. Now you must insist, and insist absolutely, on the duel coming off after seven tomorrow, so as to give me the chance of preventing him from catching the 7.45 for Paris. If he misses that he misses his crime. He can't refuse to meet you on such a small point of time and place. But this is what he will do. He will choose a field somewhere near a wayside station, where he can pick up the train. He is a very good swordsman, and he will trust to killing me in time to catch it. But I can fence well too, and I think I can keep him in play, at any rate, until the train is lost. Then perhaps he may kill me to console his feelings. You understand? Very well then, let me introduce you to some charming friends of mine," and leading them quickly across the parade, he presented them to the Marquis's seconds by two very aristocratic names of which they had not previously heard. Syme was subject to spasms of singular common sense, not otherwise a part of his character. They were (as he said of his impulse about the spectacles) poetic intuitions, and they sometimes rose to the exaltation of prophecy. He had correctly calculated in this case the policy of his opponent. When the Marquis was informed by his seconds that Syme could only fight in the morning, he must fully have realised that an obstacle had suddenly arisen between him and his bomb-throwing business in the capital. Naturally he could not explain this objection to his friends, so he chose the course which Syme had predicted. He induced his seconds to settle on a small meadow not far from the railway, and he trusted to the fatality of the first engagement. When he came down very coolly to the field of honour, no one could have guessed that he had any anxiety about a journey; his hands were in his pockets, his straw hat on the back of his head, his handsome face brazen in the sun. But it might have struck a stranger as odd that there appeared in his train, not only his seconds carrying the sword-case, but two of his servants carrying a portmanteau and a luncheon basket. Early as was the hour, the sun soaked everything in warmth, and Syme was vaguely surprised to see so many spring flowers burning gold and silver in the tall grass in which the whole company stood almost knee-deep. With the exception of the Marquis, all the men were in sombre and solemn morning-dress, with hats like black chimney-pots; the little Doctor especially, with the addition of his black spectacles, looked like an undertaker in a farce. Syme could not help feeling a comic contrast between this funereal church parade of apparel and the rich and glistening meadow, growing wild flowers everywhere. But, indeed, this comic contrast between the yellow blossoms and the black hats was but a symbol of the tragic contrast between the yellow blossoms and the black business. On his right was a

at

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word-- "Please do not think me excessively abrupt; but I advise you to alter those plans, or if it is too late for that, to follow your agent with all the support you can get for him. Comrade Syme and I have had an experience which it would take more time to recount than we can afford, if we are to act on it. I will, however, relate the occurrence in detail, even at the risk of losing time, if you really feel that it is essential to the understanding of the problem we have to discuss." He was spinning out his sentences, making them intolerably long and lingering, in the hope of maddening the practical little Doctor into an explosion of impatience which might show his hand. But the little Doctor continued only to stare and smile, and the monologue was uphill work. Syme began to feel a new sickness and despair. The Doctor's smile and silence were not at all like the cataleptic stare and horrible silence which he had confronted in the Professor half an hour before. About the Professor's makeup and all his antics there was always something merely grotesque, like a gollywog. Syme remembered those wild woes of yesterday as one remembers being afraid of Bogy in childhood. But here was daylight; here was a healthy, square-shouldered man in tweeds, not odd save for the accident of his ugly spectacles, not glaring or grinning at all, but smiling steadily and not saying a word. The whole had a sense of unbearable reality. Under the increasing sunlight the colours of the Doctor's complexion, the pattern of his tweeds, grew and expanded outrageously, as such things grow too important in a realistic novel. But his smile was quite slight, the pose of his head polite; the only uncanny thing was his silence. "As I say," resumed the Professor, like a man toiling through heavy sand, "the incident that has occurred to us and has led us to ask for information about the Marquis, is one which you may think it better to have narrated; but as it came in the way of Comrade Syme rather than me--" His words he seemed to be dragging out like words in an anthem; but Syme, who was watching, saw his long fingers rattle quickly on the edge of the crazy table. He read the message, "You must go on. This devil has sucked me dry!" Syme plunged into the breach with that bravado of improvisation which always came to him when he was alarmed. "Yes, the thing really happened to me," he said hastily. "I had the good fortune to fall into conversation with a detective who took me, thanks to my hat, for a respectable person. Wishing to clinch my reputation for respectability, I took him and made him very drunk at the Savoy. Under this influence he became friendly, and told me in so many words that within a day or two they hope to arrest the Marquis in France. "So unless you or I can get on his track--" The Doctor was still smiling in the most friendly way, and his protected eyes were still impenetrable. The Professor signalled to Syme that he would resume his explanation, and he began again with the same elaborate calm. "Syme immediately brought this information to me, and we came here together to see what use you would be inclined to make of it. It seems to me unquestionably urgent that--" All this time Syme had been staring at the Doctor almost as steadily as the Doctor stared at the Professor, but quite without the smile. The nerves of both comrades-in-arms were near snapping under that strain of motionless amiability, when Syme suddenly leant forward and idly tapped the edge of the table. His message to his ally ran, "I have an intuition." The Professor, with scarcely a pause in his monologue, signalled back, "Then sit on it." Syme telegraphed, "It is quite extraordinary." The other answered, "Extraordinary rot!" Syme said, "I am a poet." The other retorted, "You are a dead man." Syme had gone quite red up to his yellow hair, and his eyes were burning feverishly. As he said he had an intuition, and it had risen to a sort of lightheaded certainty. Resuming his symbolic taps, he signalled to his friend, "You scarcely realise how poetic my intuition is. It has that sudden quality we sometimes feel in the coming of spring." He then studied the answer on his friend's fingers. The answer was, "Go to hell!" The Professor then resumed his merely verbal monologue addressed to the Doctor. "Perhaps I should rather say," said Syme on his fingers, "that it resembles that sudden smell of the sea which may be found in the heart of lush woods." His companion disdained to reply. "Or yet again," tapped Syme, "it is positive, as is the passionate red hair of a beautiful woman." The Professor was continuing his speech, but in the middle of it Syme decided to act. He leant across the table, and said in a voice that could not be neglected-- "Dr. Bull!" The Doctor's sleek and smiling head did not move, but they could have sworn that under his dark glasses his eyes darted towards Syme. "Dr. Bull," said Syme, in a voice peculiarly precise and courteous, "would you do me a small favour? Would you be so kind as to take off your spectacles?" The Professor swung round on his seat, and stared at Syme with a sort of frozen fury of astonishment. Syme, like a man who has thrown his life and fortune on the table, leaned forward with a fiery face. The Doctor did not move. For a few seconds there was a silence in which one could hear a pin drop, split once by the single hoot of a distant steamer on the Thames. Then Dr. Bull rose slowly, still smiling, and took off his spectacles. Syme sprang to his feet, stepping backwards a little, like a chemical lecturer from a successful explosion. His eyes were like stars, and for an instant he could only point without speaking. The Professor had also started to his feet, forgetful of his supposed paralysis. He leant on the back of the chair and stared doubtfully at Dr. Bull, as if the Doctor had been turned into a toad before his eyes. And indeed it was almost as great a transformation scene. The two detectives saw sitting in the chair before them a very boyish-looking young man, with very frank and happy hazel eyes, an open expression, cockney clothes like those of a city clerk, and an unquestionable breath about him of being very good and rather commonplace. The smile was still there, but it might have been the first smile of a baby. "I knew I was a poet," cried Syme in a sort of ecstasy. "I knew my intuition was as infallible as the Pope. It was the spectacles that did it! It was all the spectacles. Given those beastly black eyes, and all the rest of him his health and his jolly looks, made him a live devil among dead ones." "It certainly does make a queer difference," said the Professor shakily. "But as regards the project of Dr. Bull--" "Project be damned!" roared Syme, beside himself. "Look at him! Look at his face, look at his collar, look at his blessed boots! You don't suppose, do you, that that thing's an anarchist?" "Syme!" cried the other in an apprehensive agony. "Why, by God," said Syme, "I'll take the risk of that myself! Dr. Bull, I am a police officer. There's my card," and he flung down the blue card upon the table. The Professor still feared that all was lost; but he was loyal. He pulled out his own official card and put it beside his friend's. Then the third man burst out laughing, and for the first time that morning they heard his voice. "I'm awfully glad you chaps have come so early," he said, with a sort of schoolboy flippancy, "for we can all start for France together. Yes, I'm in the force right enough," and he flicked a blue card towards them lightly as a matter of form. Clapping a brisk bowler on his head and resuming his goblin glasses, the Doctor moved so quickly towards the door, that the others instinctively followed him. Syme seemed a little distrait, and as he passed under the doorway he suddenly struck his stick on the stone passage so that it rang. "But Lord God Almighty," he cried out, "if this is all right, there were more damned detectives than there were damned dynamiters at the damned Council!" "We might have fought easily," said Bull; "we were four against three." The Professor was descending the stairs, but his voice came up from below. "No," said the voice, "we were not four against three--we were not so lucky. We were four against One." The others went down the stairs in silence. The young man called Bull, with an innocent courtesy characteristic of him, insisted on going last until they reached the street; but there his own robust rapidity asserted itself unconsciously, and he walked quickly on ahead towards a railway inquiry office, talking to the others over his shoulder. "It is jolly to get some pals," he said. "I've been half dead with the jumps, being quite alone. I nearly flung my arms round Gogol and embraced him, which would have been imprudent. I hope you won't despise me for having been in a blue funk." "All the blue devils in blue hell," said Syme, "contributed to my blue funk! But the worst devil was you and your infernal goggles." The young man laughed delightedly. "Wasn't it a rag?" he said. "Such a simple idea--not my own. I haven't got the brains. You see, I wanted to go into the detective service, especially the anti-dynamite business. But for that purpose they wanted someone to dress up as a dynamiter; and they all swore by blazes that I could never look like a dynamiter. They said my very walk was respectable, and that seen from behind I looked like the British Constitution. They said I looked too healthy and too optimistic, and too reliable and benevolent; they called me all sorts of names at Scotland Yard. They said that if I had been a criminal, I might have made my fortune by looking so like an honest man; but as I had the misfortune to be an honest man, there was not even the remotest chance of my assisting them by ever looking like a criminal. But at last I was brought before some old josser who was high up in the force, and who seemed to have no end of a head on his shoulders. And there the others all talked hopelessly. One asked whether a bushy beard would hide my nice smile; another said that if they blacked my face I might look like a negro anarchist; but this old chap chipped in with a most extraordinary remark. 'A pair of smoked spectacles will do it,' he said positively. 'Look at him now; he looks like an angelic office boy. Put him on a pair of smoked spectacles, and children will scream at the sight of him.' And so it was, by George! When once my eyes were covered, all the rest, smile and big shoulders and short hair, made me look a perfect little devil. As I say, it was simple enough when it was done, like miracles; but that wasn't the really miraculous part of it. There was one really staggering thing about the business, and my head still turns at it." "What was that?" asked Syme. "I'll tell you," answered the man in spectacles. "This big pot in the police who sized me up so that he knew how the goggles would go with my hair and socks--by God, he never saw me at all!" Syme's eyes suddenly flashed on him. "How was that?" he asked. "I thought you talked to him." "So I did," said Bull brightly; "but we talked in a pitch-dark room like a coalcellar. There, you would never have guessed that." "I could not have conceived it," said Syme gravely. "It is indeed a new idea," said the Professor. Their new ally was in practical matters a whirlwind. At the inquiry office he asked with businesslike brevity about the trains for Dover. Having got his information, he bundled the company into a cab, and put them and himself inside a railway carriage before they had properly realised the breathless process. They were already on the Calais boat before conversation flowed freely. "I had already arranged," he explained, "to go to France for my lunch; but I am delighted to have someone to lunch with me. You see, I had to send that beast, the Marquis, over with his bomb, because the President had his eye on me, though God knows how. I'll tell you the story some day. It was perfectly choking. Whenever I tried to slip out of it I saw the President somewhere, smiling out of the bow-window of a club, or taking off his hat to me from the top of an omnibus. I tell you, you can say what you like, that fellow sold himself to the devil; he can be in six places at once." "So you sent the Marquis off, I understand," asked the Professor. "Was it long ago? Shall we be in time to catch him?" "Yes," answered the new guide, "I've timed it all. He'll still be at Calais when we arrive." "But when we do catch him at Calais," said the Professor, "what are we going to do?" At this question the countenance of Dr. Bull fell for the first time. He reflected a little, and then said-- "Theoretically, I suppose, we ought to call the police." "Not I," said Syme. "Theoretically I ought to drown myself first. I promised a poor fellow, who was a real modern pessimist, on my word of honour not to tell the police. I'm no hand at casuistry, but I can't break my word to a modern pessimist. It's like breaking one's word to a child." "I'm in the same boat," said the Professor. "I tried to tell the police and I couldn't, because of some silly oath I took. You see, when I was an actor I was a sort of all-round beast. Perjury or treason is the only crime I haven't committed. If I did that I shouldn't know the difference between right and wrong." "I've been through all that," said Dr. Bull, "and I've made up my mind. I gave my promise to the Secretary--you know him, man who smiles upside down. My friends, that man is the most utterly unhappy man that was ever human. It may be his digestion, or his conscience, or his nerves, or his philosophy of the universe, but he's damned, he's in hell! Well, I can't turn on a man like that, and hunt him down. It's like whipping a leper. I may be mad, but that's how I feel; and there's jolly well the end of it." "I don't think you're mad," said Syme. "I knew you would decide like that when first you--" "Eh?" said Dr. Bull. "When first you took off your spectacles." Dr. Bull smiled a little, and strolled across the deck to look at the sunlit sea. Then he strolled back again, kicking his heels carelessly, and a companionable silence fell between the three men. "Well," said Syme, "it seems that we have all the same kind of morality or immorality, so we had better face the fact that comes of it." "Yes," assented the Professor, "you're quite right; and we must hurry up, for I can see the Grey Nose standing out from France." "The fact that comes of it," said Syme seriously, "is this, that we three are alone on this planet. Gogol has gone, God knows where; perhaps the President has smashed him like a fly. On the Council we are three men against three, like the Romans who held the bridge. But we are worse off than that, first because they can appeal to their organization and we cannot appeal to ours, and second because--" "Because one of those other three men," said the Professor, "is not a man." Syme nodded and was silent for a second or two, then he said-- "My idea is this. We must do something to keep the Marquis in Calais till tomorrow midday. I have turned over twenty schemes in my head. We cannot denounce him as a dynamiter; that is agreed. We cannot get him detained on some trivial charge, for we should have to appear; he knows us, and he would smell a rat. We cannot pretend to keep him on anarchist business; he might swallow much in that way, but not the notion of stopping in Calais while the Czar went safely through Paris. We might try to kidnap him, and lock him up ourselves; but he is a well-known man here. He has a whole bodyguard of friends; he is very strong and brave, and the event is doubtful. The only thing I can see to do is actually to take advantage of the very things that are in the Marquis's favour. I am going to profit by the fact that he is a highly respected nobleman. I am going to profit by the fact that he has many friends and moves in the best society." "What the devil are you talking about?" asked the Professor. "The Symes are first mentioned in the fourteenth century," said Syme; "but there is a tradition that one of them rode behind Bruce at Bannockburn. Since 1350 the tree is quite clear." "He's gone off his head," said the little Doctor, staring. "Our bearings," continued Syme calmly, "are 'argent a chevron gules charged with three cross crosslets of the field.' The motto varies." The Professor seized Syme roughly by the waistcoat. "We are just inshore," he said. "Are you seasick or joking in the wrong place?" "My remarks are almost painfully practical," answered Syme, in an unhurried manner. "The house of St. Eustache also is very ancient. The Marquis cannot deny that he is a gentleman. He cannot deny that I am a gentleman. And in order to put the matter of my social position quite beyond a doubt, I propose at the earliest opportunity to knock his hat off. But here we are in the harbour." They went on shore under the strong sun in a sort of daze. Syme, who had now taken the lead as Bull had taken it in London, led them along a kind of marine parade until he came to some cafes, embowered in a bulk of greenery and overlooking the sea. As he went before them his step was slightly swaggering, and he swung his stick like a sword. He was making apparently for the extreme end of the line of cafes, but he stopped abruptly. With a sharp gesture he motioned them to silence, but he pointed with one gloved finger to a cafe table under a bank of flowering foliage at which sat the Marquis de St. Eustache, his teeth shining in his thick, black beard, and his bold, brown face shadowed by a light yellow straw hat and outlined against the violet sea. CHAPTER X. THE DUEL SYME sat down at a cafe table with his companions, his blue eyes sparkling like the bright sea below, and ordered a bottle of Saumur with a pleased impatience. He was for some reason in a condition of curious hilarity. His spirits were already unnaturally high; they rose as the Saumur sank, and in half an hour his talk was a torrent of nonsense. He professed to be making out a plan of the conversation which was going to ensue between himself and the deadly Marquis. He jotted it down wildly with a pencil. It was arranged like a printed catechism, with questions and answers, and was delivered with an extraordinary rapidity of utterance. "I shall approach. Before taking off his hat, I shall take off my own. I shall say, 'The Marquis de Saint Eustache, I believe.' He will say, 'The celebrated Mr. Syme, I presume.' He will say in the most exquisite French, 'How are you?' I shall reply in the most exquisite Cockney, 'Oh, just the Syme--'" "Oh, shut it," said the man in spectacles. "Pull yourself together, and chuck away that bit of paper. What are you really going to do?" "But it was a lovely catechism," said Syme pathetically. "Do let me read it you. It has only forty-three questions and answers, and some of the Marquis's answers are wonderfully witty. I like to be just to my enemy." "But what's the good of it all?" asked Dr. Bull in exasperation. "It leads up to my challenge, don't you see," said Syme, beaming. "When the Marquis has given the thirty-ninth reply, which runs--" "Has it by any chance occurred to you," asked the Professor, with a ponderous simplicity, "that the Marquis may not say all the forty-three things you have put down for him? In that case, I understand, your own epigrams may appear somewhat more forced." Syme struck the table with a radiant face. "Why, how true that is," he said, "and I never thought of it. Sir, you have an intellect beyond the common. You will make a name." "Oh, you're as drunk as an owl!" said the Doctor. "It only remains," continued Syme quite unperturbed, "to adopt some other method of breaking the ice (if I may so express it) between myself and the man I wish to kill. And since the course of a dialogue cannot be predicted by one of its parties alone (as you have pointed out with such recondite acumen), the only thing to be done, I suppose, is for the one party, as far as possible, to do all the dialogue by himself. And so I will, by George!" And he stood up suddenly, his yellow hair blowing in the slight sea breeze. A band was playing in a cafe chantant hidden somewhere among the trees, and a woman had just stopped singing. On Syme's heated head the bray of the brass band seemed like the jar and jingle of that barrel-organ in Leicester Square, to the tune of which he had once stood up to die. He looked across to the little table where the Marquis sat. The man had two companions now, solemn Frenchmen in frock-coats and silk hats, one of them with the red rosette of the Legion of Honour, evidently people of a solid social position. Besides these black, cylindrical costumes, the Marquis, in his loose straw hat and light spring clothes, looked Bohemian and even barbaric; but he looked the Marquis. Indeed, one might say that he looked the king, with his animal elegance, his scornful eyes, and his proud head lifted against the purple sea. But he was no Christian king, at any rate; he was, rather, some swarthy despot, half Greek, half Asiatic, who in the days when slavery seemed natural looked down on the Mediterranean, on his galley and his groaning slaves. Just so, Syme thought, would the brown-gold face of such a tyrant have shown against the dark green olives and the burning blue. "Are you going to address the meeting?" asked the Professor peevishly, seeing that Syme still stood up without moving. Syme drained his last glass of sparkling wine. "I am," he said, pointing across to the Marquis and his companions, "that meeting. That meeting displeases me. I am going to pull that meeting's great ugly, mahogany-coloured nose." He stepped across swiftly, if not quite steadily. The Marquis, seeing him, arched his black Assyrian eyebrows in surprise, but smiled politely. "You are Mr. Syme, I think," he said. Syme bowed. "And you are the Marquis de Saint Eustache," he said gracefully. "Permit me to pull your nose." He leant over to do so, but the Marquis started backwards, upsetting his chair, and the two men in top hats held Syme back by the shoulders. "This man has insulted me!" said Syme, with gestures of explanation. "Insulted you?" cried the gentleman with the red rosette, "when?" "Oh, just now," said Syme recklessly. "He insulted my mother." "Insulted your mother!" exclaimed the gentleman incredulously. "Well, anyhow," said Syme, conceding a point, "my aunt." "But how can the Marquis have insulted your aunt just now?" said the second gentleman with some legitimate wonder. "He has been sitting here all the time." "Ah, it was what he said!" said Syme darkly. "I said nothing at all," said the Marquis, "except something about the band. I only said that I liked Wagner played well." "It was an allusion to my family," said Syme firmly. "My aunt played Wagner badly. It was a painful subject. We are always being insulted about it." "This seems most extraordinary," said the gentleman who was decore, looking doubtfully at the Marquis. "Oh, I assure you," said Syme earnestly, "the whole of your conversation was simply packed with sinister allusions to my aunt's weaknesses." "This is nonsense!" said the second gentleman. "I for one have said nothing for half an hour except that I liked the singing of that girl with black hair." "Well, there you are again!" said Syme indignantly. "My aunt's was red." "It seems to me," said the other, "that you are simply seeking a pretext to insult the Marquis." "By George!" said Syme, facing round and looking at him, "what a clever chap you are!" The Marquis started up with eyes flaming like a tiger's. "Seeking a quarrel with me!" he cried. "Seeking a fight with me! By God! there was never a man who had to seek long. These gentlemen will perhaps act for me. There are still four hours of daylight. Let us fight this evening." Syme bowed with a quite beautiful graciousness. "Marquis," he said, "your action is worthy of your fame and blood. Permit me to consult for a moment with the gentlemen in whose hands I shall place myself." In three long strides he rejoined his companions, and they, who had seen his champagne-inspired attack and listened to his idiotic explanations, were quite startled at the look of him. For now that he came back to them he was quite sober, a little pale, and he spoke in a low voice of passionate practicality. "I have done it," he said hoarsely. "I have fixed a fight on the beast. But look here, and listen carefully. There is no time for talk. You are my seconds, and everything must come from you. Now you must insist, and insist absolutely, on the duel coming off after seven tomorrow, so as to give me the chance of preventing him from catching the 7.45 for Paris. If he misses that he misses his crime. He can't refuse to meet you on such a small point of time and place. But this is what he will do. He will choose a field somewhere near a wayside station, where he can pick up the train. He is a very good swordsman, and he will trust to killing me in time to catch it. But I can fence well too, and I think I can keep him in play, at any rate, until the train is lost. Then perhaps he may kill me to console his feelings. You understand? Very well then, let me introduce you to some charming friends of mine," and leading them quickly across the parade, he presented them to the Marquis's seconds by two very aristocratic names of which they had not previously heard. Syme was subject to spasms of singular common sense, not otherwise a part of his character. They were (as he said of his impulse about the spectacles) poetic intuitions, and they sometimes rose to the exaltation of prophecy. He had correctly calculated in this case the policy of his opponent. When the Marquis was informed by his seconds that Syme could only fight in the morning, he must fully have realised that an obstacle had suddenly arisen between him and his bomb-throwing business in the capital. Naturally he could not explain this objection to his friends, so he chose the course which Syme had predicted. He induced his seconds to settle on a small meadow not far from the railway, and he trusted to the fatality of the first engagement. When he came down very coolly to the field of honour, no one could have guessed that he had any anxiety about a journey; his hands were in his pockets, his straw hat on the back of his head, his handsome face brazen in the sun. But it might have struck a stranger as odd that there appeared in his train, not only his seconds carrying the sword-case, but two of his servants carrying a portmanteau and a luncheon basket. Early as was the hour, the sun soaked everything in warmth, and Syme was vaguely surprised to see so many spring flowers burning gold and silver in the tall grass in which the whole company stood almost knee-deep. With the exception of the Marquis, all the men were in sombre and solemn morning-dress, with hats like black chimney-pots; the little Doctor especially, with the addition of his black spectacles, looked like an undertaker in a farce. Syme could not help feeling a comic contrast between this funereal church parade of apparel and the rich and glistening meadow, growing wild flowers everywhere. But, indeed, this comic contrast between the yellow blossoms and the black hats was but a symbol of the tragic contrast between the yellow blossoms and the black business. On his right was a

elements

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word-- "Please do not think me excessively abrupt; but I advise you to alter those plans, or if it is too late for that, to follow your agent with all the support you can get for him. Comrade Syme and I have had an experience which it would take more time to recount than we can afford, if we are to act on it. I will, however, relate the occurrence in detail, even at the risk of losing time, if you really feel that it is essential to the understanding of the problem we have to discuss." He was spinning out his sentences, making them intolerably long and lingering, in the hope of maddening the practical little Doctor into an explosion of impatience which might show his hand. But the little Doctor continued only to stare and smile, and the monologue was uphill work. Syme began to feel a new sickness and despair. The Doctor's smile and silence were not at all like the cataleptic stare and horrible silence which he had confronted in the Professor half an hour before. About the Professor's makeup and all his antics there was always something merely grotesque, like a gollywog. Syme remembered those wild woes of yesterday as one remembers being afraid of Bogy in childhood. But here was daylight; here was a healthy, square-shouldered man in tweeds, not odd save for the accident of his ugly spectacles, not glaring or grinning at all, but smiling steadily and not saying a word. The whole had a sense of unbearable reality. Under the increasing sunlight the colours of the Doctor's complexion, the pattern of his tweeds, grew and expanded outrageously, as such things grow too important in a realistic novel. But his smile was quite slight, the pose of his head polite; the only uncanny thing was his silence. "As I say," resumed the Professor, like a man toiling through heavy sand, "the incident that has occurred to us and has led us to ask for information about the Marquis, is one which you may think it better to have narrated; but as it came in the way of Comrade Syme rather than me--" His words he seemed to be dragging out like words in an anthem; but Syme, who was watching, saw his long fingers rattle quickly on the edge of the crazy table. He read the message, "You must go on. This devil has sucked me dry!" Syme plunged into the breach with that bravado of improvisation which always came to him when he was alarmed. "Yes, the thing really happened to me," he said hastily. "I had the good fortune to fall into conversation with a detective who took me, thanks to my hat, for a respectable person. Wishing to clinch my reputation for respectability, I took him and made him very drunk at the Savoy. Under this influence he became friendly, and told me in so many words that within a day or two they hope to arrest the Marquis in France. "So unless you or I can get on his track--" The Doctor was still smiling in the most friendly way, and his protected eyes were still impenetrable. The Professor signalled to Syme that he would resume his explanation, and he began again with the same elaborate calm. "Syme immediately brought this information to me, and we came here together to see what use you would be inclined to make of it. It seems to me unquestionably urgent that--" All this time Syme had been staring at the Doctor almost as steadily as the Doctor stared at the Professor, but quite without the smile. The nerves of both comrades-in-arms were near snapping under that strain of motionless amiability, when Syme suddenly leant forward and idly tapped the edge of the table. His message to his ally ran, "I have an intuition." The Professor, with scarcely a pause in his monologue, signalled back, "Then sit on it." Syme telegraphed, "It is quite extraordinary." The other answered, "Extraordinary rot!" Syme said, "I am a poet." The other retorted, "You are a dead man." Syme had gone quite red up to his yellow hair, and his eyes were burning feverishly. As he said he had an intuition, and it had risen to a sort of lightheaded certainty. Resuming his symbolic taps, he signalled to his friend, "You scarcely realise how poetic my intuition is. It has that sudden quality we sometimes feel in the coming of spring." He then studied the answer on his friend's fingers. The answer was, "Go to hell!" The Professor then resumed his merely verbal monologue addressed to the Doctor. "Perhaps I should rather say," said Syme on his fingers, "that it resembles that sudden smell of the sea which may be found in the heart of lush woods." His companion disdained to reply. "Or yet again," tapped Syme, "it is positive, as is the passionate red hair of a beautiful woman." The Professor was continuing his speech, but in the middle of it Syme decided to act. He leant across the table, and said in a voice that could not be neglected-- "Dr. Bull!" The Doctor's sleek and smiling head did not move, but they could have sworn that under his dark glasses his eyes darted towards Syme. "Dr. Bull," said Syme, in a voice peculiarly precise and courteous, "would you do me a small favour? Would you be so kind as to take off your spectacles?" The Professor swung round on his seat, and stared at Syme with a sort of frozen fury of astonishment. Syme, like a man who has thrown his life and fortune on the table, leaned forward with a fiery face. The Doctor did not move. For a few seconds there was a silence in which one could hear a pin drop, split once by the single hoot of a distant steamer on the Thames. Then Dr. Bull rose slowly, still smiling, and took off his spectacles. Syme sprang to his feet, stepping backwards a little, like a chemical lecturer from a successful explosion. His eyes were like stars, and for an instant he could only point without speaking. The Professor had also started to his feet, forgetful of his supposed paralysis. He leant on the back of the chair and stared doubtfully at Dr. Bull, as if the Doctor had been turned into a toad before his eyes. And indeed it was almost as great a transformation scene. The two detectives saw sitting in the chair before them a very boyish-looking young man, with very frank and happy hazel eyes, an open expression, cockney clothes like those of a city clerk, and an unquestionable breath about him of being very good and rather commonplace. The smile was still there, but it might have been the first smile of a baby. "I knew I was a poet," cried Syme in a sort of ecstasy. "I knew my intuition was as infallible as the Pope. It was the spectacles that did it! It was all the spectacles. Given those beastly black eyes, and all the rest of him his health and his jolly looks, made him a live devil among dead ones." "It certainly does make a queer difference," said the Professor shakily. "But as regards the project of Dr. Bull--" "Project be damned!" roared Syme, beside himself. "Look at him! Look at his face, look at his collar, look at his blessed boots! You don't suppose, do you, that that thing's an anarchist?" "Syme!" cried the other in an apprehensive agony. "Why, by God," said Syme, "I'll take the risk of that myself! Dr. Bull, I am a police officer. There's my card," and he flung down the blue card upon the table. The Professor still feared that all was lost; but he was loyal. He pulled out his own official card and put it beside his friend's. Then the third man burst out laughing, and for the first time that morning they heard his voice. "I'm awfully glad you chaps have come so early," he said, with a sort of schoolboy flippancy, "for we can all start for France together. Yes, I'm in the force right enough," and he flicked a blue card towards them lightly as a matter of form. Clapping a brisk bowler on his head and resuming his goblin glasses, the Doctor moved so quickly towards the door, that the others instinctively followed him. Syme seemed a little distrait, and as he passed under the doorway he suddenly struck his stick on the stone passage so that it rang. "But Lord God Almighty," he cried out, "if this is all right, there were more damned detectives than there were damned dynamiters at the damned Council!" "We might have fought easily," said Bull; "we were four against three." The Professor was descending the stairs, but his voice came up from below. "No," said the voice, "we were not four against three--we were not so lucky. We were four against One." The others went down the stairs in silence. The young man called Bull, with an innocent courtesy characteristic of him, insisted on going last until they reached the street; but there his own robust rapidity asserted itself unconsciously, and he walked quickly on ahead towards a railway inquiry office, talking to the others over his shoulder. "It is jolly to get some pals," he said. "I've been half dead with the jumps, being quite alone. I nearly flung my arms round Gogol and embraced him, which would have been imprudent. I hope you won't despise me for having been in a blue funk." "All the blue devils in blue hell," said Syme, "contributed to my blue funk! But the worst devil was you and your infernal goggles." The young man laughed delightedly. "Wasn't it a rag?" he said. "Such a simple idea--not my own. I haven't got the brains. You see, I wanted to go into the detective service, especially the anti-dynamite business. But for that purpose they wanted someone to dress up as a dynamiter; and they all swore by blazes that I could never look like a dynamiter. They said my very walk was respectable, and that seen from behind I looked like the British Constitution. They said I looked too healthy and too optimistic, and too reliable and benevolent; they called me all sorts of names at Scotland Yard. They said that if I had been a criminal, I might have made my fortune by looking so like an honest man; but as I had the misfortune to be an honest man, there was not even the remotest chance of my assisting them by ever looking like a criminal. But at last I was brought before some old josser who was high up in the force, and who seemed to have no end of a head on his shoulders. And there the others all talked hopelessly. One asked whether a bushy beard would hide my nice smile; another said that if they blacked my face I might look like a negro anarchist; but this old chap chipped in with a most extraordinary remark. 'A pair of smoked spectacles will do it,' he said positively. 'Look at him now; he looks like an angelic office boy. Put him on a pair of smoked spectacles, and children will scream at the sight of him.' And so it was, by George! When once my eyes were covered, all the rest, smile and big shoulders and short hair, made me look a perfect little devil. As I say, it was simple enough when it was done, like miracles; but that wasn't the really miraculous part of it. There was one really staggering thing about the business, and my head still turns at it." "What was that?" asked Syme. "I'll tell you," answered the man in spectacles. "This big pot in the police who sized me up so that he knew how the goggles would go with my hair and socks--by God, he never saw me at all!" Syme's eyes suddenly flashed on him. "How was that?" he asked. "I thought you talked to him." "So I did," said Bull brightly; "but we talked in a pitch-dark room like a coalcellar. There, you would never have guessed that." "I could not have conceived it," said Syme gravely. "It is indeed a new idea," said the Professor. Their new ally was in practical matters a whirlwind. At the inquiry office he asked with businesslike brevity about the trains for Dover. Having got his information, he bundled the company into a cab, and put them and himself inside a railway carriage before they had properly realised the breathless process. They were already on the Calais boat before conversation flowed freely. "I had already arranged," he explained, "to go to France for my lunch; but I am delighted to have someone to lunch with me. You see, I had to send that beast, the Marquis, over with his bomb, because the President had his eye on me, though God knows how. I'll tell you the story some day. It was perfectly choking. Whenever I tried to slip out of it I saw the President somewhere, smiling out of the bow-window of a club, or taking off his hat to me from the top of an omnibus. I tell you, you can say what you like, that fellow sold himself to the devil; he can be in six places at once." "So you sent the Marquis off, I understand," asked the Professor. "Was it long ago? Shall we be in time to catch him?" "Yes," answered the new guide, "I've timed it all. He'll still be at Calais when we arrive." "But when we do catch him at Calais," said the Professor, "what are we going to do?" At this question the countenance of Dr. Bull fell for the first time. He reflected a little, and then said-- "Theoretically, I suppose, we ought to call the police." "Not I," said Syme. "Theoretically I ought to drown myself first. I promised a poor fellow, who was a real modern pessimist, on my word of honour not to tell the police. I'm no hand at casuistry, but I can't break my word to a modern pessimist. It's like breaking one's word to a child." "I'm in the same boat," said the Professor. "I tried to tell the police and I couldn't, because of some silly oath I took. You see, when I was an actor I was a sort of all-round beast. Perjury or treason is the only crime I haven't committed. If I did that I shouldn't know the difference between right and wrong." "I've been through all that," said Dr. Bull, "and I've made up my mind. I gave my promise to the Secretary--you know him, man who smiles upside down. My friends, that man is the most utterly unhappy man that was ever human. It may be his digestion, or his conscience, or his nerves, or his philosophy of the universe, but he's damned, he's in hell! Well, I can't turn on a man like that, and hunt him down. It's like whipping a leper. I may be mad, but that's how I feel; and there's jolly well the end of it." "I don't think you're mad," said Syme. "I knew you would decide like that when first you--" "Eh?" said Dr. Bull. "When first you took off your spectacles." Dr. Bull smiled a little, and strolled across the deck to look at the sunlit sea. Then he strolled back again, kicking his heels carelessly, and a companionable silence fell between the three men. "Well," said Syme, "it seems that we have all the same kind of morality or immorality, so we had better face the fact that comes of it." "Yes," assented the Professor, "you're quite right; and we must hurry up, for I can see the Grey Nose standing out from France." "The fact that comes of it," said Syme seriously, "is this, that we three are alone on this planet. Gogol has gone, God knows where; perhaps the President has smashed him like a fly. On the Council we are three men against three, like the Romans who held the bridge. But we are worse off than that, first because they can appeal to their organization and we cannot appeal to ours, and second because--" "Because one of those other three men," said the Professor, "is not a man." Syme nodded and was silent for a second or two, then he said-- "My idea is this. We must do something to keep the Marquis in Calais till tomorrow midday. I have turned over twenty schemes in my head. We cannot denounce him as a dynamiter; that is agreed. We cannot get him detained on some trivial charge, for we should have to appear; he knows us, and he would smell a rat. We cannot pretend to keep him on anarchist business; he might swallow much in that way, but not the notion of stopping in Calais while the Czar went safely through Paris. We might try to kidnap him, and lock him up ourselves; but he is a well-known man here. He has a whole bodyguard of friends; he is very strong and brave, and the event is doubtful. The only thing I can see to do is actually to take advantage of the very things that are in the Marquis's favour. I am going to profit by the fact that he is a highly respected nobleman. I am going to profit by the fact that he has many friends and moves in the best society." "What the devil are you talking about?" asked the Professor. "The Symes are first mentioned in the fourteenth century," said Syme; "but there is a tradition that one of them rode behind Bruce at Bannockburn. Since 1350 the tree is quite clear." "He's gone off his head," said the little Doctor, staring. "Our bearings," continued Syme calmly, "are 'argent a chevron gules charged with three cross crosslets of the field.' The motto varies." The Professor seized Syme roughly by the waistcoat. "We are just inshore," he said. "Are you seasick or joking in the wrong place?" "My remarks are almost painfully practical," answered Syme, in an unhurried manner. "The house of St. Eustache also is very ancient. The Marquis cannot deny that he is a gentleman. He cannot deny that I am a gentleman. And in order to put the matter of my social position quite beyond a doubt, I propose at the earliest opportunity to knock his hat off. But here we are in the harbour." They went on shore under the strong sun in a sort of daze. Syme, who had now taken the lead as Bull had taken it in London, led them along a kind of marine parade until he came to some cafes, embowered in a bulk of greenery and overlooking the sea. As he went before them his step was slightly swaggering, and he swung his stick like a sword. He was making apparently for the extreme end of the line of cafes, but he stopped abruptly. With a sharp gesture he motioned them to silence, but he pointed with one gloved finger to a cafe table under a bank of flowering foliage at which sat the Marquis de St. Eustache, his teeth shining in his thick, black beard, and his bold, brown face shadowed by a light yellow straw hat and outlined against the violet sea. CHAPTER X. THE DUEL SYME sat down at a cafe table with his companions, his blue eyes sparkling like the bright sea below, and ordered a bottle of Saumur with a pleased impatience. He was for some reason in a condition of curious hilarity. His spirits were already unnaturally high; they rose as the Saumur sank, and in half an hour his talk was a torrent of nonsense. He professed to be making out a plan of the conversation which was going to ensue between himself and the deadly Marquis. He jotted it down wildly with a pencil. It was arranged like a printed catechism, with questions and answers, and was delivered with an extraordinary rapidity of utterance. "I shall approach. Before taking off his hat, I shall take off my own. I shall say, 'The Marquis de Saint Eustache, I believe.' He will say, 'The celebrated Mr. Syme, I presume.' He will say in the most exquisite French, 'How are you?' I shall reply in the most exquisite Cockney, 'Oh, just the Syme--'" "Oh, shut it," said the man in spectacles. "Pull yourself together, and chuck away that bit of paper. What are you really going to do?" "But it was a lovely catechism," said Syme pathetically. "Do let me read it you. It has only forty-three questions and answers, and some of the Marquis's answers are wonderfully witty. I like to be just to my enemy." "But what's the good of it all?" asked Dr. Bull in exasperation. "It leads up to my challenge, don't you see," said Syme, beaming. "When the Marquis has given the thirty-ninth reply, which runs--" "Has it by any chance occurred to you," asked the Professor, with a ponderous simplicity, "that the Marquis may not say all the forty-three things you have put down for him? In that case, I understand, your own epigrams may appear somewhat more forced." Syme struck the table with a radiant face. "Why, how true that is," he said, "and I never thought of it. Sir, you have an intellect beyond the common. You will make a name." "Oh, you're as drunk as an owl!" said the Doctor. "It only remains," continued Syme quite unperturbed, "to adopt some other method of breaking the ice (if I may so express it) between myself and the man I wish to kill. And since the course of a dialogue cannot be predicted by one of its parties alone (as you have pointed out with such recondite acumen), the only thing to be done, I suppose, is for the one party, as far as possible, to do all the dialogue by himself. And so I will, by George!" And he stood up suddenly, his yellow hair blowing in the slight sea breeze. A band was playing in a cafe chantant hidden somewhere among the trees, and a woman had just stopped singing. On Syme's heated head the bray of the brass band seemed like the jar and jingle of that barrel-organ in Leicester Square, to the tune of which he had once stood up to die. He looked across to the little table where the Marquis sat. The man had two companions now, solemn Frenchmen in frock-coats and silk hats, one of them with the red rosette of the Legion of Honour, evidently people of a solid social position. Besides these black, cylindrical costumes, the Marquis, in his loose straw hat and light spring clothes, looked Bohemian and even barbaric; but he looked the Marquis. Indeed, one might say that he looked the king, with his animal elegance, his scornful eyes, and his proud head lifted against the purple sea. But he was no Christian king, at any rate; he was, rather, some swarthy despot, half Greek, half Asiatic, who in the days when slavery seemed natural looked down on the Mediterranean, on his galley and his groaning slaves. Just so, Syme thought, would the brown-gold face of such a tyrant have shown against the dark green olives and the burning blue. "Are you going to address the meeting?" asked the Professor peevishly, seeing that Syme still stood up without moving. Syme drained his last glass of sparkling wine. "I am," he said, pointing across to the Marquis and his companions, "that meeting. That meeting displeases me. I am going to pull that meeting's great ugly, mahogany-coloured nose." He stepped across swiftly, if not quite steadily. The Marquis, seeing him, arched his black Assyrian eyebrows in surprise, but smiled politely. "You are Mr. Syme, I think," he said. Syme bowed. "And you are the Marquis de Saint Eustache," he said gracefully. "Permit me to pull your nose." He leant over to do so, but the Marquis started backwards, upsetting his chair, and the two men in top hats held Syme back by the shoulders. "This man has insulted me!" said Syme, with gestures of explanation. "Insulted you?" cried the gentleman with the red rosette, "when?" "Oh, just now," said Syme recklessly. "He insulted my mother." "Insulted your mother!" exclaimed the gentleman incredulously. "Well, anyhow," said Syme, conceding a point, "my aunt." "But how can the Marquis have insulted your aunt just now?" said the second gentleman with some legitimate wonder. "He has been sitting here all the time." "Ah, it was what he said!" said Syme darkly. "I said nothing at all," said the Marquis, "except something about the band. I only said that I liked Wagner played well." "It was an allusion to my family," said Syme firmly. "My aunt played Wagner badly. It was a painful subject. We are always being insulted about it." "This seems most extraordinary," said the gentleman who was decore, looking doubtfully at the Marquis. "Oh, I assure you," said Syme earnestly, "the whole of your conversation was simply packed with sinister allusions to my aunt's weaknesses." "This is nonsense!" said the second gentleman. "I for one have said nothing for half an hour except that I liked the singing of that girl with black hair." "Well, there you are again!" said Syme indignantly. "My aunt's was red." "It seems to me," said the other, "that you are simply seeking a pretext to insult the Marquis." "By George!" said Syme, facing round and looking at him, "what a clever chap you are!" The Marquis started up with eyes flaming like a tiger's. "Seeking a quarrel with me!" he cried. "Seeking a fight with me! By God! there was never a man who had to seek long. These gentlemen will perhaps act for me. There are still four hours of daylight. Let us fight this evening." Syme bowed with a quite beautiful graciousness. "Marquis," he said, "your action is worthy of your fame and blood. Permit me to consult for a moment with the gentlemen in whose hands I shall place myself." In three long strides he rejoined his companions, and they, who had seen his champagne-inspired attack and listened to his idiotic explanations, were quite startled at the look of him. For now that he came back to them he was quite sober, a little pale, and he spoke in a low voice of passionate practicality. "I have done it," he said hoarsely. "I have fixed a fight on the beast. But look here, and listen carefully. There is no time for talk. You are my seconds, and everything must come from you. Now you must insist, and insist absolutely, on the duel coming off after seven tomorrow, so as to give me the chance of preventing him from catching the 7.45 for Paris. If he misses that he misses his crime. He can't refuse to meet you on such a small point of time and place. But this is what he will do. He will choose a field somewhere near a wayside station, where he can pick up the train. He is a very good swordsman, and he will trust to killing me in time to catch it. But I can fence well too, and I think I can keep him in play, at any rate, until the train is lost. Then perhaps he may kill me to console his feelings. You understand? Very well then, let me introduce you to some charming friends of mine," and leading them quickly across the parade, he presented them to the Marquis's seconds by two very aristocratic names of which they had not previously heard. Syme was subject to spasms of singular common sense, not otherwise a part of his character. They were (as he said of his impulse about the spectacles) poetic intuitions, and they sometimes rose to the exaltation of prophecy. He had correctly calculated in this case the policy of his opponent. When the Marquis was informed by his seconds that Syme could only fight in the morning, he must fully have realised that an obstacle had suddenly arisen between him and his bomb-throwing business in the capital. Naturally he could not explain this objection to his friends, so he chose the course which Syme had predicted. He induced his seconds to settle on a small meadow not far from the railway, and he trusted to the fatality of the first engagement. When he came down very coolly to the field of honour, no one could have guessed that he had any anxiety about a journey; his hands were in his pockets, his straw hat on the back of his head, his handsome face brazen in the sun. But it might have struck a stranger as odd that there appeared in his train, not only his seconds carrying the sword-case, but two of his servants carrying a portmanteau and a luncheon basket. Early as was the hour, the sun soaked everything in warmth, and Syme was vaguely surprised to see so many spring flowers burning gold and silver in the tall grass in which the whole company stood almost knee-deep. With the exception of the Marquis, all the men were in sombre and solemn morning-dress, with hats like black chimney-pots; the little Doctor especially, with the addition of his black spectacles, looked like an undertaker in a farce. Syme could not help feeling a comic contrast between this funereal church parade of apparel and the rich and glistening meadow, growing wild flowers everywhere. But, indeed, this comic contrast between the yellow blossoms and the black hats was but a symbol of the tragic contrast between the yellow blossoms and the black business. On his right was a

hope

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

word-- "Please do not think me excessively abrupt; but I advise you to alter those plans, or if it is too late for that, to follow your agent with all the support you can get for him. Comrade Syme and I have had an experience which it would take more time to recount than we can afford, if we are to act on it. I will, however, relate the occurrence in detail, even at the risk of losing time, if you really feel that it is essential to the understanding of the problem we have to discuss." He was spinning out his sentences, making them intolerably long and lingering, in the hope of maddening the practical little Doctor into an explosion of impatience which might show his hand. But the little Doctor continued only to stare and smile, and the monologue was uphill work. Syme began to feel a new sickness and despair. The Doctor's smile and silence were not at all like the cataleptic stare and horrible silence which he had confronted in the Professor half an hour before. About the Professor's makeup and all his antics there was always something merely grotesque, like a gollywog. Syme remembered those wild woes of yesterday as one remembers being afraid of Bogy in childhood. But here was daylight; here was a healthy, square-shouldered man in tweeds, not odd save for the accident of his ugly spectacles, not glaring or grinning at all, but smiling steadily and not saying a word. The whole had a sense of unbearable reality. Under the increasing sunlight the colours of the Doctor's complexion, the pattern of his tweeds, grew and expanded outrageously, as such things grow too important in a realistic novel. But his smile was quite slight, the pose of his head polite; the only uncanny thing was his silence. "As I say," resumed the Professor, like a man toiling through heavy sand, "the incident that has occurred to us and has led us to ask for information about the Marquis, is one which you may think it better to have narrated; but as it came in the way of Comrade Syme rather than me--" His words he seemed to be dragging out like words in an anthem; but Syme, who was watching, saw his long fingers rattle quickly on the edge of the crazy table. He read the message, "You must go on. This devil has sucked me dry!" Syme plunged into the breach with that bravado of improvisation which always came to him when he was alarmed. "Yes, the thing really happened to me," he said hastily. "I had the good fortune to fall into conversation with a detective who took me, thanks to my hat, for a respectable person. Wishing to clinch my reputation for respectability, I took him and made him very drunk at the Savoy. Under this influence he became friendly, and told me in so many words that within a day or two they hope to arrest the Marquis in France. "So unless you or I can get on his track--" The Doctor was still smiling in the most friendly way, and his protected eyes were still impenetrable. The Professor signalled to Syme that he would resume his explanation, and he began again with the same elaborate calm. "Syme immediately brought this information to me, and we came here together to see what use you would be inclined to make of it. It seems to me unquestionably urgent that--" All this time Syme had been staring at the Doctor almost as steadily as the Doctor stared at the Professor, but quite without the smile. The nerves of both comrades-in-arms were near snapping under that strain of motionless amiability, when Syme suddenly leant forward and idly tapped the edge of the table. His message to his ally ran, "I have an intuition." The Professor, with scarcely a pause in his monologue, signalled back, "Then sit on it." Syme telegraphed, "It is quite extraordinary." The other answered, "Extraordinary rot!" Syme said, "I am a poet." The other retorted, "You are a dead man." Syme had gone quite red up to his yellow hair, and his eyes were burning feverishly. As he said he had an intuition, and it had risen to a sort of lightheaded certainty. Resuming his symbolic taps, he signalled to his friend, "You scarcely realise how poetic my intuition is. It has that sudden quality we sometimes feel in the coming of spring." He then studied the answer on his friend's fingers. The answer was, "Go to hell!" The Professor then resumed his merely verbal monologue addressed to the Doctor. "Perhaps I should rather say," said Syme on his fingers, "that it resembles that sudden smell of the sea which may be found in the heart of lush woods." His companion disdained to reply. "Or yet again," tapped Syme, "it is positive, as is the passionate red hair of a beautiful woman." The Professor was continuing his speech, but in the middle of it Syme decided to act. He leant across the table, and said in a voice that could not be neglected-- "Dr. Bull!" The Doctor's sleek and smiling head did not move, but they could have sworn that under his dark glasses his eyes darted towards Syme. "Dr. Bull," said Syme, in a voice peculiarly precise and courteous, "would you do me a small favour? Would you be so kind as to take off your spectacles?" The Professor swung round on his seat, and stared at Syme with a sort of frozen fury of astonishment. Syme, like a man who has thrown his life and fortune on the table, leaned forward with a fiery face. The Doctor did not move. For a few seconds there was a silence in which one could hear a pin drop, split once by the single hoot of a distant steamer on the Thames. Then Dr. Bull rose slowly, still smiling, and took off his spectacles. Syme sprang to his feet, stepping backwards a little, like a chemical lecturer from a successful explosion. His eyes were like stars, and for an instant he could only point without speaking. The Professor had also started to his feet, forgetful of his supposed paralysis. He leant on the back of the chair and stared doubtfully at Dr. Bull, as if the Doctor had been turned into a toad before his eyes. And indeed it was almost as great a transformation scene. The two detectives saw sitting in the chair before them a very boyish-looking young man, with very frank and happy hazel eyes, an open expression, cockney clothes like those of a city clerk, and an unquestionable breath about him of being very good and rather commonplace. The smile was still there, but it might have been the first smile of a baby. "I knew I was a poet," cried Syme in a sort of ecstasy. "I knew my intuition was as infallible as the Pope. It was the spectacles that did it! It was all the spectacles. Given those beastly black eyes, and all the rest of him his health and his jolly looks, made him a live devil among dead ones." "It certainly does make a queer difference," said the Professor shakily. "But as regards the project of Dr. Bull--" "Project be damned!" roared Syme, beside himself. "Look at him! Look at his face, look at his collar, look at his blessed boots! You don't suppose, do you, that that thing's an anarchist?" "Syme!" cried the other in an apprehensive agony. "Why, by God," said Syme, "I'll take the risk of that myself! Dr. Bull, I am a police officer. There's my card," and he flung down the blue card upon the table. The Professor still feared that all was lost; but he was loyal. He pulled out his own official card and put it beside his friend's. Then the third man burst out laughing, and for the first time that morning they heard his voice. "I'm awfully glad you chaps have come so early," he said, with a sort of schoolboy flippancy, "for we can all start for France together. Yes, I'm in the force right enough," and he flicked a blue card towards them lightly as a matter of form. Clapping a brisk bowler on his head and resuming his goblin glasses, the Doctor moved so quickly towards the door, that the others instinctively followed him. Syme seemed a little distrait, and as he passed under the doorway he suddenly struck his stick on the stone passage so that it rang. "But Lord God Almighty," he cried out, "if this is all right, there were more damned detectives than there were damned dynamiters at the damned Council!" "We might have fought easily," said Bull; "we were four against three." The Professor was descending the stairs, but his voice came up from below. "No," said the voice, "we were not four against three--we were not so lucky. We were four against One." The others went down the stairs in silence. The young man called Bull, with an innocent courtesy characteristic of him, insisted on going last until they reached the street; but there his own robust rapidity asserted itself unconsciously, and he walked quickly on ahead towards a railway inquiry office, talking to the others over his shoulder. "It is jolly to get some pals," he said. "I've been half dead with the jumps, being quite alone. I nearly flung my arms round Gogol and embraced him, which would have been imprudent. I hope you won't despise me for having been in a blue funk." "All the blue devils in blue hell," said Syme, "contributed to my blue funk! But the worst devil was you and your infernal goggles." The young man laughed delightedly. "Wasn't it a rag?" he said. "Such a simple idea--not my own. I haven't got the brains. You see, I wanted to go into the detective service, especially the anti-dynamite business. But for that purpose they wanted someone to dress up as a dynamiter; and they all swore by blazes that I could never look like a dynamiter. They said my very walk was respectable, and that seen from behind I looked like the British Constitution. They said I looked too healthy and too optimistic, and too reliable and benevolent; they called me all sorts of names at Scotland Yard. They said that if I had been a criminal, I might have made my fortune by looking so like an honest man; but as I had the misfortune to be an honest man, there was not even the remotest chance of my assisting them by ever looking like a criminal. But at last I was brought before some old josser who was high up in the force, and who seemed to have no end of a head on his shoulders. And there the others all talked hopelessly. One asked whether a bushy beard would hide my nice smile; another said that if they blacked my face I might look like a negro anarchist; but this old chap chipped in with a most extraordinary remark. 'A pair of smoked spectacles will do it,' he said positively. 'Look at him now; he looks like an angelic office boy. Put him on a pair of smoked spectacles, and children will scream at the sight of him.' And so it was, by George! When once my eyes were covered, all the rest, smile and big shoulders and short hair, made me look a perfect little devil. As I say, it was simple enough when it was done, like miracles; but that wasn't the really miraculous part of it. There was one really staggering thing about the business, and my head still turns at it." "What was that?" asked Syme. "I'll tell you," answered the man in spectacles. "This big pot in the police who sized me up so that he knew how the goggles would go with my hair and socks--by God, he never saw me at all!" Syme's eyes suddenly flashed on him. "How was that?" he asked. "I thought you talked to him." "So I did," said Bull brightly; "but we talked in a pitch-dark room like a coalcellar. There, you would never have guessed that." "I could not have conceived it," said Syme gravely. "It is indeed a new idea," said the Professor. Their new ally was in practical matters a whirlwind. At the inquiry office he asked with businesslike brevity about the trains for Dover. Having got his information, he bundled the company into a cab, and put them and himself inside a railway carriage before they had properly realised the breathless process. They were already on the Calais boat before conversation flowed freely. "I had already arranged," he explained, "to go to France for my lunch; but I am delighted to have someone to lunch with me. You see, I had to send that beast, the Marquis, over with his bomb, because the President had his eye on me, though God knows how. I'll tell you the story some day. It was perfectly choking. Whenever I tried to slip out of it I saw the President somewhere, smiling out of the bow-window of a club, or taking off his hat to me from the top of an omnibus. I tell you, you can say what you like, that fellow sold himself to the devil; he can be in six places at once." "So you sent the Marquis off, I understand," asked the Professor. "Was it long ago? Shall we be in time to catch him?" "Yes," answered the new guide, "I've timed it all. He'll still be at Calais when we arrive." "But when we do catch him at Calais," said the Professor, "what are we going to do?" At this question the countenance of Dr. Bull fell for the first time. He reflected a little, and then said-- "Theoretically, I suppose, we ought to call the police." "Not I," said Syme. "Theoretically I ought to drown myself first. I promised a poor fellow, who was a real modern pessimist, on my word of honour not to tell the police. I'm no hand at casuistry, but I can't break my word to a modern pessimist. It's like breaking one's word to a child." "I'm in the same boat," said the Professor. "I tried to tell the police and I couldn't, because of some silly oath I took. You see, when I was an actor I was a sort of all-round beast. Perjury or treason is the only crime I haven't committed. If I did that I shouldn't know the difference between right and wrong." "I've been through all that," said Dr. Bull, "and I've made up my mind. I gave my promise to the Secretary--you know him, man who smiles upside down. My friends, that man is the most utterly unhappy man that was ever human. It may be his digestion, or his conscience, or his nerves, or his philosophy of the universe, but he's damned, he's in hell! Well, I can't turn on a man like that, and hunt him down. It's like whipping a leper. I may be mad, but that's how I feel; and there's jolly well the end of it." "I don't think you're mad," said Syme. "I knew you would decide like that when first you--" "Eh?" said Dr. Bull. "When first you took off your spectacles." Dr. Bull smiled a little, and strolled across the deck to look at the sunlit sea. Then he strolled back again, kicking his heels carelessly, and a companionable silence fell between the three men. "Well," said Syme, "it seems that we have all the same kind of morality or immorality, so we had better face the fact that comes of it." "Yes," assented the Professor, "you're quite right; and we must hurry up, for I can see the Grey Nose standing out from France." "The fact that comes of it," said Syme seriously, "is this, that we three are alone on this planet. Gogol has gone, God knows where; perhaps the President has smashed him like a fly. On the Council we are three men against three, like the Romans who held the bridge. But we are worse off than that, first because they can appeal to their organization and we cannot appeal to ours, and second because--" "Because one of those other three men," said the Professor, "is not a man." Syme nodded and was silent for a second or two, then he said-- "My idea is this. We must do something to keep the Marquis in Calais till tomorrow midday. I have turned over twenty schemes in my head. We cannot denounce him as a dynamiter; that is agreed. We cannot get him detained on some trivial charge, for we should have to appear; he knows us, and he would smell a rat. We cannot pretend to keep him on anarchist business; he might swallow much in that way, but not the notion of stopping in Calais while the Czar went safely through Paris. We might try to kidnap him, and lock him up ourselves; but he is a well-known man here. He has a whole bodyguard of friends; he is very strong and brave, and the event is doubtful. The only thing I can see to do is actually to take advantage of the very things that are in the Marquis's favour. I am going to profit by the fact that he is a highly respected nobleman. I am going to profit by the fact that he has many friends and moves in the best society." "What the devil are you talking about?" asked the Professor. "The Symes are first mentioned in the fourteenth century," said Syme; "but there is a tradition that one of them rode behind Bruce at Bannockburn. Since 1350 the tree is quite clear." "He's gone off his head," said the little Doctor, staring. "Our bearings," continued Syme calmly, "are 'argent a chevron gules charged with three cross crosslets of the field.' The motto varies." The Professor seized Syme roughly by the waistcoat. "We are just inshore," he said. "Are you seasick or joking in the wrong place?" "My remarks are almost painfully practical," answered Syme, in an unhurried manner. "The house of St. Eustache also is very ancient. The Marquis cannot deny that he is a gentleman. He cannot deny that I am a gentleman. And in order to put the matter of my social position quite beyond a doubt, I propose at the earliest opportunity to knock his hat off. But here we are in the harbour." They went on shore under the strong sun in a sort of daze. Syme, who had now taken the lead as Bull had taken it in London, led them along a kind of marine parade until he came to some cafes, embowered in a bulk of greenery and overlooking the sea. As he went before them his step was slightly swaggering, and he swung his stick like a sword. He was making apparently for the extreme end of the line of cafes, but he stopped abruptly. With a sharp gesture he motioned them to silence, but he pointed with one gloved finger to a cafe table under a bank of flowering foliage at which sat the Marquis de St. Eustache, his teeth shining in his thick, black beard, and his bold, brown face shadowed by a light yellow straw hat and outlined against the violet sea. CHAPTER X. THE DUEL SYME sat down at a cafe table with his companions, his blue eyes sparkling like the bright sea below, and ordered a bottle of Saumur with a pleased impatience. He was for some reason in a condition of curious hilarity. His spirits were already unnaturally high; they rose as the Saumur sank, and in half an hour his talk was a torrent of nonsense. He professed to be making out a plan of the conversation which was going to ensue between himself and the deadly Marquis. He jotted it down wildly with a pencil. It was arranged like a printed catechism, with questions and answers, and was delivered with an extraordinary rapidity of utterance. "I shall approach. Before taking off his hat, I shall take off my own. I shall say, 'The Marquis de Saint Eustache, I believe.' He will say, 'The celebrated Mr. Syme, I presume.' He will say in the most exquisite French, 'How are you?' I shall reply in the most exquisite Cockney, 'Oh, just the Syme--'" "Oh, shut it," said the man in spectacles. "Pull yourself together, and chuck away that bit of paper. What are you really going to do?" "But it was a lovely catechism," said Syme pathetically. "Do let me read it you. It has only forty-three questions and answers, and some of the Marquis's answers are wonderfully witty. I like to be just to my enemy." "But what's the good of it all?" asked Dr. Bull in exasperation. "It leads up to my challenge, don't you see," said Syme, beaming. "When the Marquis has given the thirty-ninth reply, which runs--" "Has it by any chance occurred to you," asked the Professor, with a ponderous simplicity, "that the Marquis may not say all the forty-three things you have put down for him? In that case, I understand, your own epigrams may appear somewhat more forced." Syme struck the table with a radiant face. "Why, how true that is," he said, "and I never thought of it. Sir, you have an intellect beyond the common. You will make a name." "Oh, you're as drunk as an owl!" said the Doctor. "It only remains," continued Syme quite unperturbed, "to adopt some other method of breaking the ice (if I may so express it) between myself and the man I wish to kill. And since the course of a dialogue cannot be predicted by one of its parties alone (as you have pointed out with such recondite acumen), the only thing to be done, I suppose, is for the one party, as far as possible, to do all the dialogue by himself. And so I will, by George!" And he stood up suddenly, his yellow hair blowing in the slight sea breeze. A band was playing in a cafe chantant hidden somewhere among the trees, and a woman had just stopped singing. On Syme's heated head the bray of the brass band seemed like the jar and jingle of that barrel-organ in Leicester Square, to the tune of which he had once stood up to die. He looked across to the little table where the Marquis sat. The man had two companions now, solemn Frenchmen in frock-coats and silk hats, one of them with the red rosette of the Legion of Honour, evidently people of a solid social position. Besides these black, cylindrical costumes, the Marquis, in his loose straw hat and light spring clothes, looked Bohemian and even barbaric; but he looked the Marquis. Indeed, one might say that he looked the king, with his animal elegance, his scornful eyes, and his proud head lifted against the purple sea. But he was no Christian king, at any rate; he was, rather, some swarthy despot, half Greek, half Asiatic, who in the days when slavery seemed natural looked down on the Mediterranean, on his galley and his groaning slaves. Just so, Syme thought, would the brown-gold face of such a tyrant have shown against the dark green olives and the burning blue. "Are you going to address the meeting?" asked the Professor peevishly, seeing that Syme still stood up without moving. Syme drained his last glass of sparkling wine. "I am," he said, pointing across to the Marquis and his companions, "that meeting. That meeting displeases me. I am going to pull that meeting's great ugly, mahogany-coloured nose." He stepped across swiftly, if not quite steadily. The Marquis, seeing him, arched his black Assyrian eyebrows in surprise, but smiled politely. "You are Mr. Syme, I think," he said. Syme bowed. "And you are the Marquis de Saint Eustache," he said gracefully. "Permit me to pull your nose." He leant over to do so, but the Marquis started backwards, upsetting his chair, and the two men in top hats held Syme back by the shoulders. "This man has insulted me!" said Syme, with gestures of explanation. "Insulted you?" cried the gentleman with the red rosette, "when?" "Oh, just now," said Syme recklessly. "He insulted my mother." "Insulted your mother!" exclaimed the gentleman incredulously. "Well, anyhow," said Syme, conceding a point, "my aunt." "But how can the Marquis have insulted your aunt just now?" said the second gentleman with some legitimate wonder. "He has been sitting here all the time." "Ah, it was what he said!" said Syme darkly. "I said nothing at all," said the Marquis, "except something about the band. I only said that I liked Wagner played well." "It was an allusion to my family," said Syme firmly. "My aunt played Wagner badly. It was a painful subject. We are always being insulted about it." "This seems most extraordinary," said the gentleman who was decore, looking doubtfully at the Marquis. "Oh, I assure you," said Syme earnestly, "the whole of your conversation was simply packed with sinister allusions to my aunt's weaknesses." "This is nonsense!" said the second gentleman. "I for one have said nothing for half an hour except that I liked the singing of that girl with black hair." "Well, there you are again!" said Syme indignantly. "My aunt's was red." "It seems to me," said the other, "that you are simply seeking a pretext to insult the Marquis." "By George!" said Syme, facing round and looking at him, "what a clever chap you are!" The Marquis started up with eyes flaming like a tiger's. "Seeking a quarrel with me!" he cried. "Seeking a fight with me! By God! there was never a man who had to seek long. These gentlemen will perhaps act for me. There are still four hours of daylight. Let us fight this evening." Syme bowed with a quite beautiful graciousness. "Marquis," he said, "your action is worthy of your fame and blood. Permit me to consult for a moment with the gentlemen in whose hands I shall place myself." In three long strides he rejoined his companions, and they, who had seen his champagne-inspired attack and listened to his idiotic explanations, were quite startled at the look of him. For now that he came back to them he was quite sober, a little pale, and he spoke in a low voice of passionate practicality. "I have done it," he said hoarsely. "I have fixed a fight on the beast. But look here, and listen carefully. There is no time for talk. You are my seconds, and everything must come from you. Now you must insist, and insist absolutely, on the duel coming off after seven tomorrow, so as to give me the chance of preventing him from catching the 7.45 for Paris. If he misses that he misses his crime. He can't refuse to meet you on such a small point of time and place. But this is what he will do. He will choose a field somewhere near a wayside station, where he can pick up the train. He is a very good swordsman, and he will trust to killing me in time to catch it. But I can fence well too, and I think I can keep him in play, at any rate, until the train is lost. Then perhaps he may kill me to console his feelings. You understand? Very well then, let me introduce you to some charming friends of mine," and leading them quickly across the parade, he presented them to the Marquis's seconds by two very aristocratic names of which they had not previously heard. Syme was subject to spasms of singular common sense, not otherwise a part of his character. They were (as he said of his impulse about the spectacles) poetic intuitions, and they sometimes rose to the exaltation of prophecy. He had correctly calculated in this case the policy of his opponent. When the Marquis was informed by his seconds that Syme could only fight in the morning, he must fully have realised that an obstacle had suddenly arisen between him and his bomb-throwing business in the capital. Naturally he could not explain this objection to his friends, so he chose the course which Syme had predicted. He induced his seconds to settle on a small meadow not far from the railway, and he trusted to the fatality of the first engagement. When he came down very coolly to the field of honour, no one could have guessed that he had any anxiety about a journey; his hands were in his pockets, his straw hat on the back of his head, his handsome face brazen in the sun. But it might have struck a stranger as odd that there appeared in his train, not only his seconds carrying the sword-case, but two of his servants carrying a portmanteau and a luncheon basket. Early as was the hour, the sun soaked everything in warmth, and Syme was vaguely surprised to see so many spring flowers burning gold and silver in the tall grass in which the whole company stood almost knee-deep. With the exception of the Marquis, all the men were in sombre and solemn morning-dress, with hats like black chimney-pots; the little Doctor especially, with the addition of his black spectacles, looked like an undertaker in a farce. Syme could not help feeling a comic contrast between this funereal church parade of apparel and the rich and glistening meadow, growing wild flowers everywhere. But, indeed, this comic contrast between the yellow blossoms and the black hats was but a symbol of the tragic contrast between the yellow blossoms and the black business. On his right was a

emergencies

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

word-- "Please do not think me excessively abrupt; but I advise you to alter those plans, or if it is too late for that, to follow your agent with all the support you can get for him. Comrade Syme and I have had an experience which it would take more time to recount than we can afford, if we are to act on it. I will, however, relate the occurrence in detail, even at the risk of losing time, if you really feel that it is essential to the understanding of the problem we have to discuss." He was spinning out his sentences, making them intolerably long and lingering, in the hope of maddening the practical little Doctor into an explosion of impatience which might show his hand. But the little Doctor continued only to stare and smile, and the monologue was uphill work. Syme began to feel a new sickness and despair. The Doctor's smile and silence were not at all like the cataleptic stare and horrible silence which he had confronted in the Professor half an hour before. About the Professor's makeup and all his antics there was always something merely grotesque, like a gollywog. Syme remembered those wild woes of yesterday as one remembers being afraid of Bogy in childhood. But here was daylight; here was a healthy, square-shouldered man in tweeds, not odd save for the accident of his ugly spectacles, not glaring or grinning at all, but smiling steadily and not saying a word. The whole had a sense of unbearable reality. Under the increasing sunlight the colours of the Doctor's complexion, the pattern of his tweeds, grew and expanded outrageously, as such things grow too important in a realistic novel. But his smile was quite slight, the pose of his head polite; the only uncanny thing was his silence. "As I say," resumed the Professor, like a man toiling through heavy sand, "the incident that has occurred to us and has led us to ask for information about the Marquis, is one which you may think it better to have narrated; but as it came in the way of Comrade Syme rather than me--" His words he seemed to be dragging out like words in an anthem; but Syme, who was watching, saw his long fingers rattle quickly on the edge of the crazy table. He read the message, "You must go on. This devil has sucked me dry!" Syme plunged into the breach with that bravado of improvisation which always came to him when he was alarmed. "Yes, the thing really happened to me," he said hastily. "I had the good fortune to fall into conversation with a detective who took me, thanks to my hat, for a respectable person. Wishing to clinch my reputation for respectability, I took him and made him very drunk at the Savoy. Under this influence he became friendly, and told me in so many words that within a day or two they hope to arrest the Marquis in France. "So unless you or I can get on his track--" The Doctor was still smiling in the most friendly way, and his protected eyes were still impenetrable. The Professor signalled to Syme that he would resume his explanation, and he began again with the same elaborate calm. "Syme immediately brought this information to me, and we came here together to see what use you would be inclined to make of it. It seems to me unquestionably urgent that--" All this time Syme had been staring at the Doctor almost as steadily as the Doctor stared at the Professor, but quite without the smile. The nerves of both comrades-in-arms were near snapping under that strain of motionless amiability, when Syme suddenly leant forward and idly tapped the edge of the table. His message to his ally ran, "I have an intuition." The Professor, with scarcely a pause in his monologue, signalled back, "Then sit on it." Syme telegraphed, "It is quite extraordinary." The other answered, "Extraordinary rot!" Syme said, "I am a poet." The other retorted, "You are a dead man." Syme had gone quite red up to his yellow hair, and his eyes were burning feverishly. As he said he had an intuition, and it had risen to a sort of lightheaded certainty. Resuming his symbolic taps, he signalled to his friend, "You scarcely realise how poetic my intuition is. It has that sudden quality we sometimes feel in the coming of spring." He then studied the answer on his friend's fingers. The answer was, "Go to hell!" The Professor then resumed his merely verbal monologue addressed to the Doctor. "Perhaps I should rather say," said Syme on his fingers, "that it resembles that sudden smell of the sea which may be found in the heart of lush woods." His companion disdained to reply. "Or yet again," tapped Syme, "it is positive, as is the passionate red hair of a beautiful woman." The Professor was continuing his speech, but in the middle of it Syme decided to act. He leant across the table, and said in a voice that could not be neglected-- "Dr. Bull!" The Doctor's sleek and smiling head did not move, but they could have sworn that under his dark glasses his eyes darted towards Syme. "Dr. Bull," said Syme, in a voice peculiarly precise and courteous, "would you do me a small favour? Would you be so kind as to take off your spectacles?" The Professor swung round on his seat, and stared at Syme with a sort of frozen fury of astonishment. Syme, like a man who has thrown his life and fortune on the table, leaned forward with a fiery face. The Doctor did not move. For a few seconds there was a silence in which one could hear a pin drop, split once by the single hoot of a distant steamer on the Thames. Then Dr. Bull rose slowly, still smiling, and took off his spectacles. Syme sprang to his feet, stepping backwards a little, like a chemical lecturer from a successful explosion. His eyes were like stars, and for an instant he could only point without speaking. The Professor had also started to his feet, forgetful of his supposed paralysis. He leant on the back of the chair and stared doubtfully at Dr. Bull, as if the Doctor had been turned into a toad before his eyes. And indeed it was almost as great a transformation scene. The two detectives saw sitting in the chair before them a very boyish-looking young man, with very frank and happy hazel eyes, an open expression, cockney clothes like those of a city clerk, and an unquestionable breath about him of being very good and rather commonplace. The smile was still there, but it might have been the first smile of a baby. "I knew I was a poet," cried Syme in a sort of ecstasy. "I knew my intuition was as infallible as the Pope. It was the spectacles that did it! It was all the spectacles. Given those beastly black eyes, and all the rest of him his health and his jolly looks, made him a live devil among dead ones." "It certainly does make a queer difference," said the Professor shakily. "But as regards the project of Dr. Bull--" "Project be damned!" roared Syme, beside himself. "Look at him! Look at his face, look at his collar, look at his blessed boots! You don't suppose, do you, that that thing's an anarchist?" "Syme!" cried the other in an apprehensive agony. "Why, by God," said Syme, "I'll take the risk of that myself! Dr. Bull, I am a police officer. There's my card," and he flung down the blue card upon the table. The Professor still feared that all was lost; but he was loyal. He pulled out his own official card and put it beside his friend's. Then the third man burst out laughing, and for the first time that morning they heard his voice. "I'm awfully glad you chaps have come so early," he said, with a sort of schoolboy flippancy, "for we can all start for France together. Yes, I'm in the force right enough," and he flicked a blue card towards them lightly as a matter of form. Clapping a brisk bowler on his head and resuming his goblin glasses, the Doctor moved so quickly towards the door, that the others instinctively followed him. Syme seemed a little distrait, and as he passed under the doorway he suddenly struck his stick on the stone passage so that it rang. "But Lord God Almighty," he cried out, "if this is all right, there were more damned detectives than there were damned dynamiters at the damned Council!" "We might have fought easily," said Bull; "we were four against three." The Professor was descending the stairs, but his voice came up from below. "No," said the voice, "we were not four against three--we were not so lucky. We were four against One." The others went down the stairs in silence. The young man called Bull, with an innocent courtesy characteristic of him, insisted on going last until they reached the street; but there his own robust rapidity asserted itself unconsciously, and he walked quickly on ahead towards a railway inquiry office, talking to the others over his shoulder. "It is jolly to get some pals," he said. "I've been half dead with the jumps, being quite alone. I nearly flung my arms round Gogol and embraced him, which would have been imprudent. I hope you won't despise me for having been in a blue funk." "All the blue devils in blue hell," said Syme, "contributed to my blue funk! But the worst devil was you and your infernal goggles." The young man laughed delightedly. "Wasn't it a rag?" he said. "Such a simple idea--not my own. I haven't got the brains. You see, I wanted to go into the detective service, especially the anti-dynamite business. But for that purpose they wanted someone to dress up as a dynamiter; and they all swore by blazes that I could never look like a dynamiter. They said my very walk was respectable, and that seen from behind I looked like the British Constitution. They said I looked too healthy and too optimistic, and too reliable and benevolent; they called me all sorts of names at Scotland Yard. They said that if I had been a criminal, I might have made my fortune by looking so like an honest man; but as I had the misfortune to be an honest man, there was not even the remotest chance of my assisting them by ever looking like a criminal. But at last I was brought before some old josser who was high up in the force, and who seemed to have no end of a head on his shoulders. And there the others all talked hopelessly. One asked whether a bushy beard would hide my nice smile; another said that if they blacked my face I might look like a negro anarchist; but this old chap chipped in with a most extraordinary remark. 'A pair of smoked spectacles will do it,' he said positively. 'Look at him now; he looks like an angelic office boy. Put him on a pair of smoked spectacles, and children will scream at the sight of him.' And so it was, by George! When once my eyes were covered, all the rest, smile and big shoulders and short hair, made me look a perfect little devil. As I say, it was simple enough when it was done, like miracles; but that wasn't the really miraculous part of it. There was one really staggering thing about the business, and my head still turns at it." "What was that?" asked Syme. "I'll tell you," answered the man in spectacles. "This big pot in the police who sized me up so that he knew how the goggles would go with my hair and socks--by God, he never saw me at all!" Syme's eyes suddenly flashed on him. "How was that?" he asked. "I thought you talked to him." "So I did," said Bull brightly; "but we talked in a pitch-dark room like a coalcellar. There, you would never have guessed that." "I could not have conceived it," said Syme gravely. "It is indeed a new idea," said the Professor. Their new ally was in practical matters a whirlwind. At the inquiry office he asked with businesslike brevity about the trains for Dover. Having got his information, he bundled the company into a cab, and put them and himself inside a railway carriage before they had properly realised the breathless process. They were already on the Calais boat before conversation flowed freely. "I had already arranged," he explained, "to go to France for my lunch; but I am delighted to have someone to lunch with me. You see, I had to send that beast, the Marquis, over with his bomb, because the President had his eye on me, though God knows how. I'll tell you the story some day. It was perfectly choking. Whenever I tried to slip out of it I saw the President somewhere, smiling out of the bow-window of a club, or taking off his hat to me from the top of an omnibus. I tell you, you can say what you like, that fellow sold himself to the devil; he can be in six places at once." "So you sent the Marquis off, I understand," asked the Professor. "Was it long ago? Shall we be in time to catch him?" "Yes," answered the new guide, "I've timed it all. He'll still be at Calais when we arrive." "But when we do catch him at Calais," said the Professor, "what are we going to do?" At this question the countenance of Dr. Bull fell for the first time. He reflected a little, and then said-- "Theoretically, I suppose, we ought to call the police." "Not I," said Syme. "Theoretically I ought to drown myself first. I promised a poor fellow, who was a real modern pessimist, on my word of honour not to tell the police. I'm no hand at casuistry, but I can't break my word to a modern pessimist. It's like breaking one's word to a child." "I'm in the same boat," said the Professor. "I tried to tell the police and I couldn't, because of some silly oath I took. You see, when I was an actor I was a sort of all-round beast. Perjury or treason is the only crime I haven't committed. If I did that I shouldn't know the difference between right and wrong." "I've been through all that," said Dr. Bull, "and I've made up my mind. I gave my promise to the Secretary--you know him, man who smiles upside down. My friends, that man is the most utterly unhappy man that was ever human. It may be his digestion, or his conscience, or his nerves, or his philosophy of the universe, but he's damned, he's in hell! Well, I can't turn on a man like that, and hunt him down. It's like whipping a leper. I may be mad, but that's how I feel; and there's jolly well the end of it." "I don't think you're mad," said Syme. "I knew you would decide like that when first you--" "Eh?" said Dr. Bull. "When first you took off your spectacles." Dr. Bull smiled a little, and strolled across the deck to look at the sunlit sea. Then he strolled back again, kicking his heels carelessly, and a companionable silence fell between the three men. "Well," said Syme, "it seems that we have all the same kind of morality or immorality, so we had better face the fact that comes of it." "Yes," assented the Professor, "you're quite right; and we must hurry up, for I can see the Grey Nose standing out from France." "The fact that comes of it," said Syme seriously, "is this, that we three are alone on this planet. Gogol has gone, God knows where; perhaps the President has smashed him like a fly. On the Council we are three men against three, like the Romans who held the bridge. But we are worse off than that, first because they can appeal to their organization and we cannot appeal to ours, and second because--" "Because one of those other three men," said the Professor, "is not a man." Syme nodded and was silent for a second or two, then he said-- "My idea is this. We must do something to keep the Marquis in Calais till tomorrow midday. I have turned over twenty schemes in my head. We cannot denounce him as a dynamiter; that is agreed. We cannot get him detained on some trivial charge, for we should have to appear; he knows us, and he would smell a rat. We cannot pretend to keep him on anarchist business; he might swallow much in that way, but not the notion of stopping in Calais while the Czar went safely through Paris. We might try to kidnap him, and lock him up ourselves; but he is a well-known man here. He has a whole bodyguard of friends; he is very strong and brave, and the event is doubtful. The only thing I can see to do is actually to take advantage of the very things that are in the Marquis's favour. I am going to profit by the fact that he is a highly respected nobleman. I am going to profit by the fact that he has many friends and moves in the best society." "What the devil are you talking about?" asked the Professor. "The Symes are first mentioned in the fourteenth century," said Syme; "but there is a tradition that one of them rode behind Bruce at Bannockburn. Since 1350 the tree is quite clear." "He's gone off his head," said the little Doctor, staring. "Our bearings," continued Syme calmly, "are 'argent a chevron gules charged with three cross crosslets of the field.' The motto varies." The Professor seized Syme roughly by the waistcoat. "We are just inshore," he said. "Are you seasick or joking in the wrong place?" "My remarks are almost painfully practical," answered Syme, in an unhurried manner. "The house of St. Eustache also is very ancient. The Marquis cannot deny that he is a gentleman. He cannot deny that I am a gentleman. And in order to put the matter of my social position quite beyond a doubt, I propose at the earliest opportunity to knock his hat off. But here we are in the harbour." They went on shore under the strong sun in a sort of daze. Syme, who had now taken the lead as Bull had taken it in London, led them along a kind of marine parade until he came to some cafes, embowered in a bulk of greenery and overlooking the sea. As he went before them his step was slightly swaggering, and he swung his stick like a sword. He was making apparently for the extreme end of the line of cafes, but he stopped abruptly. With a sharp gesture he motioned them to silence, but he pointed with one gloved finger to a cafe table under a bank of flowering foliage at which sat the Marquis de St. Eustache, his teeth shining in his thick, black beard, and his bold, brown face shadowed by a light yellow straw hat and outlined against the violet sea. CHAPTER X. THE DUEL SYME sat down at a cafe table with his companions, his blue eyes sparkling like the bright sea below, and ordered a bottle of Saumur with a pleased impatience. He was for some reason in a condition of curious hilarity. His spirits were already unnaturally high; they rose as the Saumur sank, and in half an hour his talk was a torrent of nonsense. He professed to be making out a plan of the conversation which was going to ensue between himself and the deadly Marquis. He jotted it down wildly with a pencil. It was arranged like a printed catechism, with questions and answers, and was delivered with an extraordinary rapidity of utterance. "I shall approach. Before taking off his hat, I shall take off my own. I shall say, 'The Marquis de Saint Eustache, I believe.' He will say, 'The celebrated Mr. Syme, I presume.' He will say in the most exquisite French, 'How are you?' I shall reply in the most exquisite Cockney, 'Oh, just the Syme--'" "Oh, shut it," said the man in spectacles. "Pull yourself together, and chuck away that bit of paper. What are you really going to do?" "But it was a lovely catechism," said Syme pathetically. "Do let me read it you. It has only forty-three questions and answers, and some of the Marquis's answers are wonderfully witty. I like to be just to my enemy." "But what's the good of it all?" asked Dr. Bull in exasperation. "It leads up to my challenge, don't you see," said Syme, beaming. "When the Marquis has given the thirty-ninth reply, which runs--" "Has it by any chance occurred to you," asked the Professor, with a ponderous simplicity, "that the Marquis may not say all the forty-three things you have put down for him? In that case, I understand, your own epigrams may appear somewhat more forced." Syme struck the table with a radiant face. "Why, how true that is," he said, "and I never thought of it. Sir, you have an intellect beyond the common. You will make a name." "Oh, you're as drunk as an owl!" said the Doctor. "It only remains," continued Syme quite unperturbed, "to adopt some other method of breaking the ice (if I may so express it) between myself and the man I wish to kill. And since the course of a dialogue cannot be predicted by one of its parties alone (as you have pointed out with such recondite acumen), the only thing to be done, I suppose, is for the one party, as far as possible, to do all the dialogue by himself. And so I will, by George!" And he stood up suddenly, his yellow hair blowing in the slight sea breeze. A band was playing in a cafe chantant hidden somewhere among the trees, and a woman had just stopped singing. On Syme's heated head the bray of the brass band seemed like the jar and jingle of that barrel-organ in Leicester Square, to the tune of which he had once stood up to die. He looked across to the little table where the Marquis sat. The man had two companions now, solemn Frenchmen in frock-coats and silk hats, one of them with the red rosette of the Legion of Honour, evidently people of a solid social position. Besides these black, cylindrical costumes, the Marquis, in his loose straw hat and light spring clothes, looked Bohemian and even barbaric; but he looked the Marquis. Indeed, one might say that he looked the king, with his animal elegance, his scornful eyes, and his proud head lifted against the purple sea. But he was no Christian king, at any rate; he was, rather, some swarthy despot, half Greek, half Asiatic, who in the days when slavery seemed natural looked down on the Mediterranean, on his galley and his groaning slaves. Just so, Syme thought, would the brown-gold face of such a tyrant have shown against the dark green olives and the burning blue. "Are you going to address the meeting?" asked the Professor peevishly, seeing that Syme still stood up without moving. Syme drained his last glass of sparkling wine. "I am," he said, pointing across to the Marquis and his companions, "that meeting. That meeting displeases me. I am going to pull that meeting's great ugly, mahogany-coloured nose." He stepped across swiftly, if not quite steadily. The Marquis, seeing him, arched his black Assyrian eyebrows in surprise, but smiled politely. "You are Mr. Syme, I think," he said. Syme bowed. "And you are the Marquis de Saint Eustache," he said gracefully. "Permit me to pull your nose." He leant over to do so, but the Marquis started backwards, upsetting his chair, and the two men in top hats held Syme back by the shoulders. "This man has insulted me!" said Syme, with gestures of explanation. "Insulted you?" cried the gentleman with the red rosette, "when?" "Oh, just now," said Syme recklessly. "He insulted my mother." "Insulted your mother!" exclaimed the gentleman incredulously. "Well, anyhow," said Syme, conceding a point, "my aunt." "But how can the Marquis have insulted your aunt just now?" said the second gentleman with some legitimate wonder. "He has been sitting here all the time." "Ah, it was what he said!" said Syme darkly. "I said nothing at all," said the Marquis, "except something about the band. I only said that I liked Wagner played well." "It was an allusion to my family," said Syme firmly. "My aunt played Wagner badly. It was a painful subject. We are always being insulted about it." "This seems most extraordinary," said the gentleman who was decore, looking doubtfully at the Marquis. "Oh, I assure you," said Syme earnestly, "the whole of your conversation was simply packed with sinister allusions to my aunt's weaknesses." "This is nonsense!" said the second gentleman. "I for one have said nothing for half an hour except that I liked the singing of that girl with black hair." "Well, there you are again!" said Syme indignantly. "My aunt's was red." "It seems to me," said the other, "that you are simply seeking a pretext to insult the Marquis." "By George!" said Syme, facing round and looking at him, "what a clever chap you are!" The Marquis started up with eyes flaming like a tiger's. "Seeking a quarrel with me!" he cried. "Seeking a fight with me! By God! there was never a man who had to seek long. These gentlemen will perhaps act for me. There are still four hours of daylight. Let us fight this evening." Syme bowed with a quite beautiful graciousness. "Marquis," he said, "your action is worthy of your fame and blood. Permit me to consult for a moment with the gentlemen in whose hands I shall place myself." In three long strides he rejoined his companions, and they, who had seen his champagne-inspired attack and listened to his idiotic explanations, were quite startled at the look of him. For now that he came back to them he was quite sober, a little pale, and he spoke in a low voice of passionate practicality. "I have done it," he said hoarsely. "I have fixed a fight on the beast. But look here, and listen carefully. There is no time for talk. You are my seconds, and everything must come from you. Now you must insist, and insist absolutely, on the duel coming off after seven tomorrow, so as to give me the chance of preventing him from catching the 7.45 for Paris. If he misses that he misses his crime. He can't refuse to meet you on such a small point of time and place. But this is what he will do. He will choose a field somewhere near a wayside station, where he can pick up the train. He is a very good swordsman, and he will trust to killing me in time to catch it. But I can fence well too, and I think I can keep him in play, at any rate, until the train is lost. Then perhaps he may kill me to console his feelings. You understand? Very well then, let me introduce you to some charming friends of mine," and leading them quickly across the parade, he presented them to the Marquis's seconds by two very aristocratic names of which they had not previously heard. Syme was subject to spasms of singular common sense, not otherwise a part of his character. They were (as he said of his impulse about the spectacles) poetic intuitions, and they sometimes rose to the exaltation of prophecy. He had correctly calculated in this case the policy of his opponent. When the Marquis was informed by his seconds that Syme could only fight in the morning, he must fully have realised that an obstacle had suddenly arisen between him and his bomb-throwing business in the capital. Naturally he could not explain this objection to his friends, so he chose the course which Syme had predicted. He induced his seconds to settle on a small meadow not far from the railway, and he trusted to the fatality of the first engagement. When he came down very coolly to the field of honour, no one could have guessed that he had any anxiety about a journey; his hands were in his pockets, his straw hat on the back of his head, his handsome face brazen in the sun. But it might have struck a stranger as odd that there appeared in his train, not only his seconds carrying the sword-case, but two of his servants carrying a portmanteau and a luncheon basket. Early as was the hour, the sun soaked everything in warmth, and Syme was vaguely surprised to see so many spring flowers burning gold and silver in the tall grass in which the whole company stood almost knee-deep. With the exception of the Marquis, all the men were in sombre and solemn morning-dress, with hats like black chimney-pots; the little Doctor especially, with the addition of his black spectacles, looked like an undertaker in a farce. Syme could not help feeling a comic contrast between this funereal church parade of apparel and the rich and glistening meadow, growing wild flowers everywhere. But, indeed, this comic contrast between the yellow blossoms and the black hats was but a symbol of the tragic contrast between the yellow blossoms and the black business. On his right was a

friend

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

word-- "Please do not think me excessively abrupt; but I advise you to alter those plans, or if it is too late for that, to follow your agent with all the support you can get for him. Comrade Syme and I have had an experience which it would take more time to recount than we can afford, if we are to act on it. I will, however, relate the occurrence in detail, even at the risk of losing time, if you really feel that it is essential to the understanding of the problem we have to discuss." He was spinning out his sentences, making them intolerably long and lingering, in the hope of maddening the practical little Doctor into an explosion of impatience which might show his hand. But the little Doctor continued only to stare and smile, and the monologue was uphill work. Syme began to feel a new sickness and despair. The Doctor's smile and silence were not at all like the cataleptic stare and horrible silence which he had confronted in the Professor half an hour before. About the Professor's makeup and all his antics there was always something merely grotesque, like a gollywog. Syme remembered those wild woes of yesterday as one remembers being afraid of Bogy in childhood. But here was daylight; here was a healthy, square-shouldered man in tweeds, not odd save for the accident of his ugly spectacles, not glaring or grinning at all, but smiling steadily and not saying a word. The whole had a sense of unbearable reality. Under the increasing sunlight the colours of the Doctor's complexion, the pattern of his tweeds, grew and expanded outrageously, as such things grow too important in a realistic novel. But his smile was quite slight, the pose of his head polite; the only uncanny thing was his silence. "As I say," resumed the Professor, like a man toiling through heavy sand, "the incident that has occurred to us and has led us to ask for information about the Marquis, is one which you may think it better to have narrated; but as it came in the way of Comrade Syme rather than me--" His words he seemed to be dragging out like words in an anthem; but Syme, who was watching, saw his long fingers rattle quickly on the edge of the crazy table. He read the message, "You must go on. This devil has sucked me dry!" Syme plunged into the breach with that bravado of improvisation which always came to him when he was alarmed. "Yes, the thing really happened to me," he said hastily. "I had the good fortune to fall into conversation with a detective who took me, thanks to my hat, for a respectable person. Wishing to clinch my reputation for respectability, I took him and made him very drunk at the Savoy. Under this influence he became friendly, and told me in so many words that within a day or two they hope to arrest the Marquis in France. "So unless you or I can get on his track--" The Doctor was still smiling in the most friendly way, and his protected eyes were still impenetrable. The Professor signalled to Syme that he would resume his explanation, and he began again with the same elaborate calm. "Syme immediately brought this information to me, and we came here together to see what use you would be inclined to make of it. It seems to me unquestionably urgent that--" All this time Syme had been staring at the Doctor almost as steadily as the Doctor stared at the Professor, but quite without the smile. The nerves of both comrades-in-arms were near snapping under that strain of motionless amiability, when Syme suddenly leant forward and idly tapped the edge of the table. His message to his ally ran, "I have an intuition." The Professor, with scarcely a pause in his monologue, signalled back, "Then sit on it." Syme telegraphed, "It is quite extraordinary." The other answered, "Extraordinary rot!" Syme said, "I am a poet." The other retorted, "You are a dead man." Syme had gone quite red up to his yellow hair, and his eyes were burning feverishly. As he said he had an intuition, and it had risen to a sort of lightheaded certainty. Resuming his symbolic taps, he signalled to his friend, "You scarcely realise how poetic my intuition is. It has that sudden quality we sometimes feel in the coming of spring." He then studied the answer on his friend's fingers. The answer was, "Go to hell!" The Professor then resumed his merely verbal monologue addressed to the Doctor. "Perhaps I should rather say," said Syme on his fingers, "that it resembles that sudden smell of the sea which may be found in the heart of lush woods." His companion disdained to reply. "Or yet again," tapped Syme, "it is positive, as is the passionate red hair of a beautiful woman." The Professor was continuing his speech, but in the middle of it Syme decided to act. He leant across the table, and said in a voice that could not be neglected-- "Dr. Bull!" The Doctor's sleek and smiling head did not move, but they could have sworn that under his dark glasses his eyes darted towards Syme. "Dr. Bull," said Syme, in a voice peculiarly precise and courteous, "would you do me a small favour? Would you be so kind as to take off your spectacles?" The Professor swung round on his seat, and stared at Syme with a sort of frozen fury of astonishment. Syme, like a man who has thrown his life and fortune on the table, leaned forward with a fiery face. The Doctor did not move. For a few seconds there was a silence in which one could hear a pin drop, split once by the single hoot of a distant steamer on the Thames. Then Dr. Bull rose slowly, still smiling, and took off his spectacles. Syme sprang to his feet, stepping backwards a little, like a chemical lecturer from a successful explosion. His eyes were like stars, and for an instant he could only point without speaking. The Professor had also started to his feet, forgetful of his supposed paralysis. He leant on the back of the chair and stared doubtfully at Dr. Bull, as if the Doctor had been turned into a toad before his eyes. And indeed it was almost as great a transformation scene. The two detectives saw sitting in the chair before them a very boyish-looking young man, with very frank and happy hazel eyes, an open expression, cockney clothes like those of a city clerk, and an unquestionable breath about him of being very good and rather commonplace. The smile was still there, but it might have been the first smile of a baby. "I knew I was a poet," cried Syme in a sort of ecstasy. "I knew my intuition was as infallible as the Pope. It was the spectacles that did it! It was all the spectacles. Given those beastly black eyes, and all the rest of him his health and his jolly looks, made him a live devil among dead ones." "It certainly does make a queer difference," said the Professor shakily. "But as regards the project of Dr. Bull--" "Project be damned!" roared Syme, beside himself. "Look at him! Look at his face, look at his collar, look at his blessed boots! You don't suppose, do you, that that thing's an anarchist?" "Syme!" cried the other in an apprehensive agony. "Why, by God," said Syme, "I'll take the risk of that myself! Dr. Bull, I am a police officer. There's my card," and he flung down the blue card upon the table. The Professor still feared that all was lost; but he was loyal. He pulled out his own official card and put it beside his friend's. Then the third man burst out laughing, and for the first time that morning they heard his voice. "I'm awfully glad you chaps have come so early," he said, with a sort of schoolboy flippancy, "for we can all start for France together. Yes, I'm in the force right enough," and he flicked a blue card towards them lightly as a matter of form. Clapping a brisk bowler on his head and resuming his goblin glasses, the Doctor moved so quickly towards the door, that the others instinctively followed him. Syme seemed a little distrait, and as he passed under the doorway he suddenly struck his stick on the stone passage so that it rang. "But Lord God Almighty," he cried out, "if this is all right, there were more damned detectives than there were damned dynamiters at the damned Council!" "We might have fought easily," said Bull; "we were four against three." The Professor was descending the stairs, but his voice came up from below. "No," said the voice, "we were not four against three--we were not so lucky. We were four against One." The others went down the stairs in silence. The young man called Bull, with an innocent courtesy characteristic of him, insisted on going last until they reached the street; but there his own robust rapidity asserted itself unconsciously, and he walked quickly on ahead towards a railway inquiry office, talking to the others over his shoulder. "It is jolly to get some pals," he said. "I've been half dead with the jumps, being quite alone. I nearly flung my arms round Gogol and embraced him, which would have been imprudent. I hope you won't despise me for having been in a blue funk." "All the blue devils in blue hell," said Syme, "contributed to my blue funk! But the worst devil was you and your infernal goggles." The young man laughed delightedly. "Wasn't it a rag?" he said. "Such a simple idea--not my own. I haven't got the brains. You see, I wanted to go into the detective service, especially the anti-dynamite business. But for that purpose they wanted someone to dress up as a dynamiter; and they all swore by blazes that I could never look like a dynamiter. They said my very walk was respectable, and that seen from behind I looked like the British Constitution. They said I looked too healthy and too optimistic, and too reliable and benevolent; they called me all sorts of names at Scotland Yard. They said that if I had been a criminal, I might have made my fortune by looking so like an honest man; but as I had the misfortune to be an honest man, there was not even the remotest chance of my assisting them by ever looking like a criminal. But at last I was brought before some old josser who was high up in the force, and who seemed to have no end of a head on his shoulders. And there the others all talked hopelessly. One asked whether a bushy beard would hide my nice smile; another said that if they blacked my face I might look like a negro anarchist; but this old chap chipped in with a most extraordinary remark. 'A pair of smoked spectacles will do it,' he said positively. 'Look at him now; he looks like an angelic office boy. Put him on a pair of smoked spectacles, and children will scream at the sight of him.' And so it was, by George! When once my eyes were covered, all the rest, smile and big shoulders and short hair, made me look a perfect little devil. As I say, it was simple enough when it was done, like miracles; but that wasn't the really miraculous part of it. There was one really staggering thing about the business, and my head still turns at it." "What was that?" asked Syme. "I'll tell you," answered the man in spectacles. "This big pot in the police who sized me up so that he knew how the goggles would go with my hair and socks--by God, he never saw me at all!" Syme's eyes suddenly flashed on him. "How was that?" he asked. "I thought you talked to him." "So I did," said Bull brightly; "but we talked in a pitch-dark room like a coalcellar. There, you would never have guessed that." "I could not have conceived it," said Syme gravely. "It is indeed a new idea," said the Professor. Their new ally was in practical matters a whirlwind. At the inquiry office he asked with businesslike brevity about the trains for Dover. Having got his information, he bundled the company into a cab, and put them and himself inside a railway carriage before they had properly realised the breathless process. They were already on the Calais boat before conversation flowed freely. "I had already arranged," he explained, "to go to France for my lunch; but I am delighted to have someone to lunch with me. You see, I had to send that beast, the Marquis, over with his bomb, because the President had his eye on me, though God knows how. I'll tell you the story some day. It was perfectly choking. Whenever I tried to slip out of it I saw the President somewhere, smiling out of the bow-window of a club, or taking off his hat to me from the top of an omnibus. I tell you, you can say what you like, that fellow sold himself to the devil; he can be in six places at once." "So you sent the Marquis off, I understand," asked the Professor. "Was it long ago? Shall we be in time to catch him?" "Yes," answered the new guide, "I've timed it all. He'll still be at Calais when we arrive." "But when we do catch him at Calais," said the Professor, "what are we going to do?" At this question the countenance of Dr. Bull fell for the first time. He reflected a little, and then said-- "Theoretically, I suppose, we ought to call the police." "Not I," said Syme. "Theoretically I ought to drown myself first. I promised a poor fellow, who was a real modern pessimist, on my word of honour not to tell the police. I'm no hand at casuistry, but I can't break my word to a modern pessimist. It's like breaking one's word to a child." "I'm in the same boat," said the Professor. "I tried to tell the police and I couldn't, because of some silly oath I took. You see, when I was an actor I was a sort of all-round beast. Perjury or treason is the only crime I haven't committed. If I did that I shouldn't know the difference between right and wrong." "I've been through all that," said Dr. Bull, "and I've made up my mind. I gave my promise to the Secretary--you know him, man who smiles upside down. My friends, that man is the most utterly unhappy man that was ever human. It may be his digestion, or his conscience, or his nerves, or his philosophy of the universe, but he's damned, he's in hell! Well, I can't turn on a man like that, and hunt him down. It's like whipping a leper. I may be mad, but that's how I feel; and there's jolly well the end of it." "I don't think you're mad," said Syme. "I knew you would decide like that when first you--" "Eh?" said Dr. Bull. "When first you took off your spectacles." Dr. Bull smiled a little, and strolled across the deck to look at the sunlit sea. Then he strolled back again, kicking his heels carelessly, and a companionable silence fell between the three men. "Well," said Syme, "it seems that we have all the same kind of morality or immorality, so we had better face the fact that comes of it." "Yes," assented the Professor, "you're quite right; and we must hurry up, for I can see the Grey Nose standing out from France." "The fact that comes of it," said Syme seriously, "is this, that we three are alone on this planet. Gogol has gone, God knows where; perhaps the President has smashed him like a fly. On the Council we are three men against three, like the Romans who held the bridge. But we are worse off than that, first because they can appeal to their organization and we cannot appeal to ours, and second because--" "Because one of those other three men," said the Professor, "is not a man." Syme nodded and was silent for a second or two, then he said-- "My idea is this. We must do something to keep the Marquis in Calais till tomorrow midday. I have turned over twenty schemes in my head. We cannot denounce him as a dynamiter; that is agreed. We cannot get him detained on some trivial charge, for we should have to appear; he knows us, and he would smell a rat. We cannot pretend to keep him on anarchist business; he might swallow much in that way, but not the notion of stopping in Calais while the Czar went safely through Paris. We might try to kidnap him, and lock him up ourselves; but he is a well-known man here. He has a whole bodyguard of friends; he is very strong and brave, and the event is doubtful. The only thing I can see to do is actually to take advantage of the very things that are in the Marquis's favour. I am going to profit by the fact that he is a highly respected nobleman. I am going to profit by the fact that he has many friends and moves in the best society." "What the devil are you talking about?" asked the Professor. "The Symes are first mentioned in the fourteenth century," said Syme; "but there is a tradition that one of them rode behind Bruce at Bannockburn. Since 1350 the tree is quite clear." "He's gone off his head," said the little Doctor, staring. "Our bearings," continued Syme calmly, "are 'argent a chevron gules charged with three cross crosslets of the field.' The motto varies." The Professor seized Syme roughly by the waistcoat. "We are just inshore," he said. "Are you seasick or joking in the wrong place?" "My remarks are almost painfully practical," answered Syme, in an unhurried manner. "The house of St. Eustache also is very ancient. The Marquis cannot deny that he is a gentleman. He cannot deny that I am a gentleman. And in order to put the matter of my social position quite beyond a doubt, I propose at the earliest opportunity to knock his hat off. But here we are in the harbour." They went on shore under the strong sun in a sort of daze. Syme, who had now taken the lead as Bull had taken it in London, led them along a kind of marine parade until he came to some cafes, embowered in a bulk of greenery and overlooking the sea. As he went before them his step was slightly swaggering, and he swung his stick like a sword. He was making apparently for the extreme end of the line of cafes, but he stopped abruptly. With a sharp gesture he motioned them to silence, but he pointed with one gloved finger to a cafe table under a bank of flowering foliage at which sat the Marquis de St. Eustache, his teeth shining in his thick, black beard, and his bold, brown face shadowed by a light yellow straw hat and outlined against the violet sea. CHAPTER X. THE DUEL SYME sat down at a cafe table with his companions, his blue eyes sparkling like the bright sea below, and ordered a bottle of Saumur with a pleased impatience. He was for some reason in a condition of curious hilarity. His spirits were already unnaturally high; they rose as the Saumur sank, and in half an hour his talk was a torrent of nonsense. He professed to be making out a plan of the conversation which was going to ensue between himself and the deadly Marquis. He jotted it down wildly with a pencil. It was arranged like a printed catechism, with questions and answers, and was delivered with an extraordinary rapidity of utterance. "I shall approach. Before taking off his hat, I shall take off my own. I shall say, 'The Marquis de Saint Eustache, I believe.' He will say, 'The celebrated Mr. Syme, I presume.' He will say in the most exquisite French, 'How are you?' I shall reply in the most exquisite Cockney, 'Oh, just the Syme--'" "Oh, shut it," said the man in spectacles. "Pull yourself together, and chuck away that bit of paper. What are you really going to do?" "But it was a lovely catechism," said Syme pathetically. "Do let me read it you. It has only forty-three questions and answers, and some of the Marquis's answers are wonderfully witty. I like to be just to my enemy." "But what's the good of it all?" asked Dr. Bull in exasperation. "It leads up to my challenge, don't you see," said Syme, beaming. "When the Marquis has given the thirty-ninth reply, which runs--" "Has it by any chance occurred to you," asked the Professor, with a ponderous simplicity, "that the Marquis may not say all the forty-three things you have put down for him? In that case, I understand, your own epigrams may appear somewhat more forced." Syme struck the table with a radiant face. "Why, how true that is," he said, "and I never thought of it. Sir, you have an intellect beyond the common. You will make a name." "Oh, you're as drunk as an owl!" said the Doctor. "It only remains," continued Syme quite unperturbed, "to adopt some other method of breaking the ice (if I may so express it) between myself and the man I wish to kill. And since the course of a dialogue cannot be predicted by one of its parties alone (as you have pointed out with such recondite acumen), the only thing to be done, I suppose, is for the one party, as far as possible, to do all the dialogue by himself. And so I will, by George!" And he stood up suddenly, his yellow hair blowing in the slight sea breeze. A band was playing in a cafe chantant hidden somewhere among the trees, and a woman had just stopped singing. On Syme's heated head the bray of the brass band seemed like the jar and jingle of that barrel-organ in Leicester Square, to the tune of which he had once stood up to die. He looked across to the little table where the Marquis sat. The man had two companions now, solemn Frenchmen in frock-coats and silk hats, one of them with the red rosette of the Legion of Honour, evidently people of a solid social position. Besides these black, cylindrical costumes, the Marquis, in his loose straw hat and light spring clothes, looked Bohemian and even barbaric; but he looked the Marquis. Indeed, one might say that he looked the king, with his animal elegance, his scornful eyes, and his proud head lifted against the purple sea. But he was no Christian king, at any rate; he was, rather, some swarthy despot, half Greek, half Asiatic, who in the days when slavery seemed natural looked down on the Mediterranean, on his galley and his groaning slaves. Just so, Syme thought, would the brown-gold face of such a tyrant have shown against the dark green olives and the burning blue. "Are you going to address the meeting?" asked the Professor peevishly, seeing that Syme still stood up without moving. Syme drained his last glass of sparkling wine. "I am," he said, pointing across to the Marquis and his companions, "that meeting. That meeting displeases me. I am going to pull that meeting's great ugly, mahogany-coloured nose." He stepped across swiftly, if not quite steadily. The Marquis, seeing him, arched his black Assyrian eyebrows in surprise, but smiled politely. "You are Mr. Syme, I think," he said. Syme bowed. "And you are the Marquis de Saint Eustache," he said gracefully. "Permit me to pull your nose." He leant over to do so, but the Marquis started backwards, upsetting his chair, and the two men in top hats held Syme back by the shoulders. "This man has insulted me!" said Syme, with gestures of explanation. "Insulted you?" cried the gentleman with the red rosette, "when?" "Oh, just now," said Syme recklessly. "He insulted my mother." "Insulted your mother!" exclaimed the gentleman incredulously. "Well, anyhow," said Syme, conceding a point, "my aunt." "But how can the Marquis have insulted your aunt just now?" said the second gentleman with some legitimate wonder. "He has been sitting here all the time." "Ah, it was what he said!" said Syme darkly. "I said nothing at all," said the Marquis, "except something about the band. I only said that I liked Wagner played well." "It was an allusion to my family," said Syme firmly. "My aunt played Wagner badly. It was a painful subject. We are always being insulted about it." "This seems most extraordinary," said the gentleman who was decore, looking doubtfully at the Marquis. "Oh, I assure you," said Syme earnestly, "the whole of your conversation was simply packed with sinister allusions to my aunt's weaknesses." "This is nonsense!" said the second gentleman. "I for one have said nothing for half an hour except that I liked the singing of that girl with black hair." "Well, there you are again!" said Syme indignantly. "My aunt's was red." "It seems to me," said the other, "that you are simply seeking a pretext to insult the Marquis." "By George!" said Syme, facing round and looking at him, "what a clever chap you are!" The Marquis started up with eyes flaming like a tiger's. "Seeking a quarrel with me!" he cried. "Seeking a fight with me! By God! there was never a man who had to seek long. These gentlemen will perhaps act for me. There are still four hours of daylight. Let us fight this evening." Syme bowed with a quite beautiful graciousness. "Marquis," he said, "your action is worthy of your fame and blood. Permit me to consult for a moment with the gentlemen in whose hands I shall place myself." In three long strides he rejoined his companions, and they, who had seen his champagne-inspired attack and listened to his idiotic explanations, were quite startled at the look of him. For now that he came back to them he was quite sober, a little pale, and he spoke in a low voice of passionate practicality. "I have done it," he said hoarsely. "I have fixed a fight on the beast. But look here, and listen carefully. There is no time for talk. You are my seconds, and everything must come from you. Now you must insist, and insist absolutely, on the duel coming off after seven tomorrow, so as to give me the chance of preventing him from catching the 7.45 for Paris. If he misses that he misses his crime. He can't refuse to meet you on such a small point of time and place. But this is what he will do. He will choose a field somewhere near a wayside station, where he can pick up the train. He is a very good swordsman, and he will trust to killing me in time to catch it. But I can fence well too, and I think I can keep him in play, at any rate, until the train is lost. Then perhaps he may kill me to console his feelings. You understand? Very well then, let me introduce you to some charming friends of mine," and leading them quickly across the parade, he presented them to the Marquis's seconds by two very aristocratic names of which they had not previously heard. Syme was subject to spasms of singular common sense, not otherwise a part of his character. They were (as he said of his impulse about the spectacles) poetic intuitions, and they sometimes rose to the exaltation of prophecy. He had correctly calculated in this case the policy of his opponent. When the Marquis was informed by his seconds that Syme could only fight in the morning, he must fully have realised that an obstacle had suddenly arisen between him and his bomb-throwing business in the capital. Naturally he could not explain this objection to his friends, so he chose the course which Syme had predicted. He induced his seconds to settle on a small meadow not far from the railway, and he trusted to the fatality of the first engagement. When he came down very coolly to the field of honour, no one could have guessed that he had any anxiety about a journey; his hands were in his pockets, his straw hat on the back of his head, his handsome face brazen in the sun. But it might have struck a stranger as odd that there appeared in his train, not only his seconds carrying the sword-case, but two of his servants carrying a portmanteau and a luncheon basket. Early as was the hour, the sun soaked everything in warmth, and Syme was vaguely surprised to see so many spring flowers burning gold and silver in the tall grass in which the whole company stood almost knee-deep. With the exception of the Marquis, all the men were in sombre and solemn morning-dress, with hats like black chimney-pots; the little Doctor especially, with the addition of his black spectacles, looked like an undertaker in a farce. Syme could not help feeling a comic contrast between this funereal church parade of apparel and the rich and glistening meadow, growing wild flowers everywhere. But, indeed, this comic contrast between the yellow blossoms and the black hats was but a symbol of the tragic contrast between the yellow blossoms and the black business. On his right was a

buckingham

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

word-- "Please do not think me excessively abrupt; but I advise you to alter those plans, or if it is too late for that, to follow your agent with all the support you can get for him. Comrade Syme and I have had an experience which it would take more time to recount than we can afford, if we are to act on it. I will, however, relate the occurrence in detail, even at the risk of losing time, if you really feel that it is essential to the understanding of the problem we have to discuss." He was spinning out his sentences, making them intolerably long and lingering, in the hope of maddening the practical little Doctor into an explosion of impatience which might show his hand. But the little Doctor continued only to stare and smile, and the monologue was uphill work. Syme began to feel a new sickness and despair. The Doctor's smile and silence were not at all like the cataleptic stare and horrible silence which he had confronted in the Professor half an hour before. About the Professor's makeup and all his antics there was always something merely grotesque, like a gollywog. Syme remembered those wild woes of yesterday as one remembers being afraid of Bogy in childhood. But here was daylight; here was a healthy, square-shouldered man in tweeds, not odd save for the accident of his ugly spectacles, not glaring or grinning at all, but smiling steadily and not saying a word. The whole had a sense of unbearable reality. Under the increasing sunlight the colours of the Doctor's complexion, the pattern of his tweeds, grew and expanded outrageously, as such things grow too important in a realistic novel. But his smile was quite slight, the pose of his head polite; the only uncanny thing was his silence. "As I say," resumed the Professor, like a man toiling through heavy sand, "the incident that has occurred to us and has led us to ask for information about the Marquis, is one which you may think it better to have narrated; but as it came in the way of Comrade Syme rather than me--" His words he seemed to be dragging out like words in an anthem; but Syme, who was watching, saw his long fingers rattle quickly on the edge of the crazy table. He read the message, "You must go on. This devil has sucked me dry!" Syme plunged into the breach with that bravado of improvisation which always came to him when he was alarmed. "Yes, the thing really happened to me," he said hastily. "I had the good fortune to fall into conversation with a detective who took me, thanks to my hat, for a respectable person. Wishing to clinch my reputation for respectability, I took him and made him very drunk at the Savoy. Under this influence he became friendly, and told me in so many words that within a day or two they hope to arrest the Marquis in France. "So unless you or I can get on his track--" The Doctor was still smiling in the most friendly way, and his protected eyes were still impenetrable. The Professor signalled to Syme that he would resume his explanation, and he began again with the same elaborate calm. "Syme immediately brought this information to me, and we came here together to see what use you would be inclined to make of it. It seems to me unquestionably urgent that--" All this time Syme had been staring at the Doctor almost as steadily as the Doctor stared at the Professor, but quite without the smile. The nerves of both comrades-in-arms were near snapping under that strain of motionless amiability, when Syme suddenly leant forward and idly tapped the edge of the table. His message to his ally ran, "I have an intuition." The Professor, with scarcely a pause in his monologue, signalled back, "Then sit on it." Syme telegraphed, "It is quite extraordinary." The other answered, "Extraordinary rot!" Syme said, "I am a poet." The other retorted, "You are a dead man." Syme had gone quite red up to his yellow hair, and his eyes were burning feverishly. As he said he had an intuition, and it had risen to a sort of lightheaded certainty. Resuming his symbolic taps, he signalled to his friend, "You scarcely realise how poetic my intuition is. It has that sudden quality we sometimes feel in the coming of spring." He then studied the answer on his friend's fingers. The answer was, "Go to hell!" The Professor then resumed his merely verbal monologue addressed to the Doctor. "Perhaps I should rather say," said Syme on his fingers, "that it resembles that sudden smell of the sea which may be found in the heart of lush woods." His companion disdained to reply. "Or yet again," tapped Syme, "it is positive, as is the passionate red hair of a beautiful woman." The Professor was continuing his speech, but in the middle of it Syme decided to act. He leant across the table, and said in a voice that could not be neglected-- "Dr. Bull!" The Doctor's sleek and smiling head did not move, but they could have sworn that under his dark glasses his eyes darted towards Syme. "Dr. Bull," said Syme, in a voice peculiarly precise and courteous, "would you do me a small favour? Would you be so kind as to take off your spectacles?" The Professor swung round on his seat, and stared at Syme with a sort of frozen fury of astonishment. Syme, like a man who has thrown his life and fortune on the table, leaned forward with a fiery face. The Doctor did not move. For a few seconds there was a silence in which one could hear a pin drop, split once by the single hoot of a distant steamer on the Thames. Then Dr. Bull rose slowly, still smiling, and took off his spectacles. Syme sprang to his feet, stepping backwards a little, like a chemical lecturer from a successful explosion. His eyes were like stars, and for an instant he could only point without speaking. The Professor had also started to his feet, forgetful of his supposed paralysis. He leant on the back of the chair and stared doubtfully at Dr. Bull, as if the Doctor had been turned into a toad before his eyes. And indeed it was almost as great a transformation scene. The two detectives saw sitting in the chair before them a very boyish-looking young man, with very frank and happy hazel eyes, an open expression, cockney clothes like those of a city clerk, and an unquestionable breath about him of being very good and rather commonplace. The smile was still there, but it might have been the first smile of a baby. "I knew I was a poet," cried Syme in a sort of ecstasy. "I knew my intuition was as infallible as the Pope. It was the spectacles that did it! It was all the spectacles. Given those beastly black eyes, and all the rest of him his health and his jolly looks, made him a live devil among dead ones." "It certainly does make a queer difference," said the Professor shakily. "But as regards the project of Dr. Bull--" "Project be damned!" roared Syme, beside himself. "Look at him! Look at his face, look at his collar, look at his blessed boots! You don't suppose, do you, that that thing's an anarchist?" "Syme!" cried the other in an apprehensive agony. "Why, by God," said Syme, "I'll take the risk of that myself! Dr. Bull, I am a police officer. There's my card," and he flung down the blue card upon the table. The Professor still feared that all was lost; but he was loyal. He pulled out his own official card and put it beside his friend's. Then the third man burst out laughing, and for the first time that morning they heard his voice. "I'm awfully glad you chaps have come so early," he said, with a sort of schoolboy flippancy, "for we can all start for France together. Yes, I'm in the force right enough," and he flicked a blue card towards them lightly as a matter of form. Clapping a brisk bowler on his head and resuming his goblin glasses, the Doctor moved so quickly towards the door, that the others instinctively followed him. Syme seemed a little distrait, and as he passed under the doorway he suddenly struck his stick on the stone passage so that it rang. "But Lord God Almighty," he cried out, "if this is all right, there were more damned detectives than there were damned dynamiters at the damned Council!" "We might have fought easily," said Bull; "we were four against three." The Professor was descending the stairs, but his voice came up from below. "No," said the voice, "we were not four against three--we were not so lucky. We were four against One." The others went down the stairs in silence. The young man called Bull, with an innocent courtesy characteristic of him, insisted on going last until they reached the street; but there his own robust rapidity asserted itself unconsciously, and he walked quickly on ahead towards a railway inquiry office, talking to the others over his shoulder. "It is jolly to get some pals," he said. "I've been half dead with the jumps, being quite alone. I nearly flung my arms round Gogol and embraced him, which would have been imprudent. I hope you won't despise me for having been in a blue funk." "All the blue devils in blue hell," said Syme, "contributed to my blue funk! But the worst devil was you and your infernal goggles." The young man laughed delightedly. "Wasn't it a rag?" he said. "Such a simple idea--not my own. I haven't got the brains. You see, I wanted to go into the detective service, especially the anti-dynamite business. But for that purpose they wanted someone to dress up as a dynamiter; and they all swore by blazes that I could never look like a dynamiter. They said my very walk was respectable, and that seen from behind I looked like the British Constitution. They said I looked too healthy and too optimistic, and too reliable and benevolent; they called me all sorts of names at Scotland Yard. They said that if I had been a criminal, I might have made my fortune by looking so like an honest man; but as I had the misfortune to be an honest man, there was not even the remotest chance of my assisting them by ever looking like a criminal. But at last I was brought before some old josser who was high up in the force, and who seemed to have no end of a head on his shoulders. And there the others all talked hopelessly. One asked whether a bushy beard would hide my nice smile; another said that if they blacked my face I might look like a negro anarchist; but this old chap chipped in with a most extraordinary remark. 'A pair of smoked spectacles will do it,' he said positively. 'Look at him now; he looks like an angelic office boy. Put him on a pair of smoked spectacles, and children will scream at the sight of him.' And so it was, by George! When once my eyes were covered, all the rest, smile and big shoulders and short hair, made me look a perfect little devil. As I say, it was simple enough when it was done, like miracles; but that wasn't the really miraculous part of it. There was one really staggering thing about the business, and my head still turns at it." "What was that?" asked Syme. "I'll tell you," answered the man in spectacles. "This big pot in the police who sized me up so that he knew how the goggles would go with my hair and socks--by God, he never saw me at all!" Syme's eyes suddenly flashed on him. "How was that?" he asked. "I thought you talked to him." "So I did," said Bull brightly; "but we talked in a pitch-dark room like a coalcellar. There, you would never have guessed that." "I could not have conceived it," said Syme gravely. "It is indeed a new idea," said the Professor. Their new ally was in practical matters a whirlwind. At the inquiry office he asked with businesslike brevity about the trains for Dover. Having got his information, he bundled the company into a cab, and put them and himself inside a railway carriage before they had properly realised the breathless process. They were already on the Calais boat before conversation flowed freely. "I had already arranged," he explained, "to go to France for my lunch; but I am delighted to have someone to lunch with me. You see, I had to send that beast, the Marquis, over with his bomb, because the President had his eye on me, though God knows how. I'll tell you the story some day. It was perfectly choking. Whenever I tried to slip out of it I saw the President somewhere, smiling out of the bow-window of a club, or taking off his hat to me from the top of an omnibus. I tell you, you can say what you like, that fellow sold himself to the devil; he can be in six places at once." "So you sent the Marquis off, I understand," asked the Professor. "Was it long ago? Shall we be in time to catch him?" "Yes," answered the new guide, "I've timed it all. He'll still be at Calais when we arrive." "But when we do catch him at Calais," said the Professor, "what are we going to do?" At this question the countenance of Dr. Bull fell for the first time. He reflected a little, and then said-- "Theoretically, I suppose, we ought to call the police." "Not I," said Syme. "Theoretically I ought to drown myself first. I promised a poor fellow, who was a real modern pessimist, on my word of honour not to tell the police. I'm no hand at casuistry, but I can't break my word to a modern pessimist. It's like breaking one's word to a child." "I'm in the same boat," said the Professor. "I tried to tell the police and I couldn't, because of some silly oath I took. You see, when I was an actor I was a sort of all-round beast. Perjury or treason is the only crime I haven't committed. If I did that I shouldn't know the difference between right and wrong." "I've been through all that," said Dr. Bull, "and I've made up my mind. I gave my promise to the Secretary--you know him, man who smiles upside down. My friends, that man is the most utterly unhappy man that was ever human. It may be his digestion, or his conscience, or his nerves, or his philosophy of the universe, but he's damned, he's in hell! Well, I can't turn on a man like that, and hunt him down. It's like whipping a leper. I may be mad, but that's how I feel; and there's jolly well the end of it." "I don't think you're mad," said Syme. "I knew you would decide like that when first you--" "Eh?" said Dr. Bull. "When first you took off your spectacles." Dr. Bull smiled a little, and strolled across the deck to look at the sunlit sea. Then he strolled back again, kicking his heels carelessly, and a companionable silence fell between the three men. "Well," said Syme, "it seems that we have all the same kind of morality or immorality, so we had better face the fact that comes of it." "Yes," assented the Professor, "you're quite right; and we must hurry up, for I can see the Grey Nose standing out from France." "The fact that comes of it," said Syme seriously, "is this, that we three are alone on this planet. Gogol has gone, God knows where; perhaps the President has smashed him like a fly. On the Council we are three men against three, like the Romans who held the bridge. But we are worse off than that, first because they can appeal to their organization and we cannot appeal to ours, and second because--" "Because one of those other three men," said the Professor, "is not a man." Syme nodded and was silent for a second or two, then he said-- "My idea is this. We must do something to keep the Marquis in Calais till tomorrow midday. I have turned over twenty schemes in my head. We cannot denounce him as a dynamiter; that is agreed. We cannot get him detained on some trivial charge, for we should have to appear; he knows us, and he would smell a rat. We cannot pretend to keep him on anarchist business; he might swallow much in that way, but not the notion of stopping in Calais while the Czar went safely through Paris. We might try to kidnap him, and lock him up ourselves; but he is a well-known man here. He has a whole bodyguard of friends; he is very strong and brave, and the event is doubtful. The only thing I can see to do is actually to take advantage of the very things that are in the Marquis's favour. I am going to profit by the fact that he is a highly respected nobleman. I am going to profit by the fact that he has many friends and moves in the best society." "What the devil are you talking about?" asked the Professor. "The Symes are first mentioned in the fourteenth century," said Syme; "but there is a tradition that one of them rode behind Bruce at Bannockburn. Since 1350 the tree is quite clear." "He's gone off his head," said the little Doctor, staring. "Our bearings," continued Syme calmly, "are 'argent a chevron gules charged with three cross crosslets of the field.' The motto varies." The Professor seized Syme roughly by the waistcoat. "We are just inshore," he said. "Are you seasick or joking in the wrong place?" "My remarks are almost painfully practical," answered Syme, in an unhurried manner. "The house of St. Eustache also is very ancient. The Marquis cannot deny that he is a gentleman. He cannot deny that I am a gentleman. And in order to put the matter of my social position quite beyond a doubt, I propose at the earliest opportunity to knock his hat off. But here we are in the harbour." They went on shore under the strong sun in a sort of daze. Syme, who had now taken the lead as Bull had taken it in London, led them along a kind of marine parade until he came to some cafes, embowered in a bulk of greenery and overlooking the sea. As he went before them his step was slightly swaggering, and he swung his stick like a sword. He was making apparently for the extreme end of the line of cafes, but he stopped abruptly. With a sharp gesture he motioned them to silence, but he pointed with one gloved finger to a cafe table under a bank of flowering foliage at which sat the Marquis de St. Eustache, his teeth shining in his thick, black beard, and his bold, brown face shadowed by a light yellow straw hat and outlined against the violet sea. CHAPTER X. THE DUEL SYME sat down at a cafe table with his companions, his blue eyes sparkling like the bright sea below, and ordered a bottle of Saumur with a pleased impatience. He was for some reason in a condition of curious hilarity. His spirits were already unnaturally high; they rose as the Saumur sank, and in half an hour his talk was a torrent of nonsense. He professed to be making out a plan of the conversation which was going to ensue between himself and the deadly Marquis. He jotted it down wildly with a pencil. It was arranged like a printed catechism, with questions and answers, and was delivered with an extraordinary rapidity of utterance. "I shall approach. Before taking off his hat, I shall take off my own. I shall say, 'The Marquis de Saint Eustache, I believe.' He will say, 'The celebrated Mr. Syme, I presume.' He will say in the most exquisite French, 'How are you?' I shall reply in the most exquisite Cockney, 'Oh, just the Syme--'" "Oh, shut it," said the man in spectacles. "Pull yourself together, and chuck away that bit of paper. What are you really going to do?" "But it was a lovely catechism," said Syme pathetically. "Do let me read it you. It has only forty-three questions and answers, and some of the Marquis's answers are wonderfully witty. I like to be just to my enemy." "But what's the good of it all?" asked Dr. Bull in exasperation. "It leads up to my challenge, don't you see," said Syme, beaming. "When the Marquis has given the thirty-ninth reply, which runs--" "Has it by any chance occurred to you," asked the Professor, with a ponderous simplicity, "that the Marquis may not say all the forty-three things you have put down for him? In that case, I understand, your own epigrams may appear somewhat more forced." Syme struck the table with a radiant face. "Why, how true that is," he said, "and I never thought of it. Sir, you have an intellect beyond the common. You will make a name." "Oh, you're as drunk as an owl!" said the Doctor. "It only remains," continued Syme quite unperturbed, "to adopt some other method of breaking the ice (if I may so express it) between myself and the man I wish to kill. And since the course of a dialogue cannot be predicted by one of its parties alone (as you have pointed out with such recondite acumen), the only thing to be done, I suppose, is for the one party, as far as possible, to do all the dialogue by himself. And so I will, by George!" And he stood up suddenly, his yellow hair blowing in the slight sea breeze. A band was playing in a cafe chantant hidden somewhere among the trees, and a woman had just stopped singing. On Syme's heated head the bray of the brass band seemed like the jar and jingle of that barrel-organ in Leicester Square, to the tune of which he had once stood up to die. He looked across to the little table where the Marquis sat. The man had two companions now, solemn Frenchmen in frock-coats and silk hats, one of them with the red rosette of the Legion of Honour, evidently people of a solid social position. Besides these black, cylindrical costumes, the Marquis, in his loose straw hat and light spring clothes, looked Bohemian and even barbaric; but he looked the Marquis. Indeed, one might say that he looked the king, with his animal elegance, his scornful eyes, and his proud head lifted against the purple sea. But he was no Christian king, at any rate; he was, rather, some swarthy despot, half Greek, half Asiatic, who in the days when slavery seemed natural looked down on the Mediterranean, on his galley and his groaning slaves. Just so, Syme thought, would the brown-gold face of such a tyrant have shown against the dark green olives and the burning blue. "Are you going to address the meeting?" asked the Professor peevishly, seeing that Syme still stood up without moving. Syme drained his last glass of sparkling wine. "I am," he said, pointing across to the Marquis and his companions, "that meeting. That meeting displeases me. I am going to pull that meeting's great ugly, mahogany-coloured nose." He stepped across swiftly, if not quite steadily. The Marquis, seeing him, arched his black Assyrian eyebrows in surprise, but smiled politely. "You are Mr. Syme, I think," he said. Syme bowed. "And you are the Marquis de Saint Eustache," he said gracefully. "Permit me to pull your nose." He leant over to do so, but the Marquis started backwards, upsetting his chair, and the two men in top hats held Syme back by the shoulders. "This man has insulted me!" said Syme, with gestures of explanation. "Insulted you?" cried the gentleman with the red rosette, "when?" "Oh, just now," said Syme recklessly. "He insulted my mother." "Insulted your mother!" exclaimed the gentleman incredulously. "Well, anyhow," said Syme, conceding a point, "my aunt." "But how can the Marquis have insulted your aunt just now?" said the second gentleman with some legitimate wonder. "He has been sitting here all the time." "Ah, it was what he said!" said Syme darkly. "I said nothing at all," said the Marquis, "except something about the band. I only said that I liked Wagner played well." "It was an allusion to my family," said Syme firmly. "My aunt played Wagner badly. It was a painful subject. We are always being insulted about it." "This seems most extraordinary," said the gentleman who was decore, looking doubtfully at the Marquis. "Oh, I assure you," said Syme earnestly, "the whole of your conversation was simply packed with sinister allusions to my aunt's weaknesses." "This is nonsense!" said the second gentleman. "I for one have said nothing for half an hour except that I liked the singing of that girl with black hair." "Well, there you are again!" said Syme indignantly. "My aunt's was red." "It seems to me," said the other, "that you are simply seeking a pretext to insult the Marquis." "By George!" said Syme, facing round and looking at him, "what a clever chap you are!" The Marquis started up with eyes flaming like a tiger's. "Seeking a quarrel with me!" he cried. "Seeking a fight with me! By God! there was never a man who had to seek long. These gentlemen will perhaps act for me. There are still four hours of daylight. Let us fight this evening." Syme bowed with a quite beautiful graciousness. "Marquis," he said, "your action is worthy of your fame and blood. Permit me to consult for a moment with the gentlemen in whose hands I shall place myself." In three long strides he rejoined his companions, and they, who had seen his champagne-inspired attack and listened to his idiotic explanations, were quite startled at the look of him. For now that he came back to them he was quite sober, a little pale, and he spoke in a low voice of passionate practicality. "I have done it," he said hoarsely. "I have fixed a fight on the beast. But look here, and listen carefully. There is no time for talk. You are my seconds, and everything must come from you. Now you must insist, and insist absolutely, on the duel coming off after seven tomorrow, so as to give me the chance of preventing him from catching the 7.45 for Paris. If he misses that he misses his crime. He can't refuse to meet you on such a small point of time and place. But this is what he will do. He will choose a field somewhere near a wayside station, where he can pick up the train. He is a very good swordsman, and he will trust to killing me in time to catch it. But I can fence well too, and I think I can keep him in play, at any rate, until the train is lost. Then perhaps he may kill me to console his feelings. You understand? Very well then, let me introduce you to some charming friends of mine," and leading them quickly across the parade, he presented them to the Marquis's seconds by two very aristocratic names of which they had not previously heard. Syme was subject to spasms of singular common sense, not otherwise a part of his character. They were (as he said of his impulse about the spectacles) poetic intuitions, and they sometimes rose to the exaltation of prophecy. He had correctly calculated in this case the policy of his opponent. When the Marquis was informed by his seconds that Syme could only fight in the morning, he must fully have realised that an obstacle had suddenly arisen between him and his bomb-throwing business in the capital. Naturally he could not explain this objection to his friends, so he chose the course which Syme had predicted. He induced his seconds to settle on a small meadow not far from the railway, and he trusted to the fatality of the first engagement. When he came down very coolly to the field of honour, no one could have guessed that he had any anxiety about a journey; his hands were in his pockets, his straw hat on the back of his head, his handsome face brazen in the sun. But it might have struck a stranger as odd that there appeared in his train, not only his seconds carrying the sword-case, but two of his servants carrying a portmanteau and a luncheon basket. Early as was the hour, the sun soaked everything in warmth, and Syme was vaguely surprised to see so many spring flowers burning gold and silver in the tall grass in which the whole company stood almost knee-deep. With the exception of the Marquis, all the men were in sombre and solemn morning-dress, with hats like black chimney-pots; the little Doctor especially, with the addition of his black spectacles, looked like an undertaker in a farce. Syme could not help feeling a comic contrast between this funereal church parade of apparel and the rich and glistening meadow, growing wild flowers everywhere. But, indeed, this comic contrast between the yellow blossoms and the black hats was but a symbol of the tragic contrast between the yellow blossoms and the black business. On his right was a

takes

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

word-- "Please do not think me excessively abrupt; but I advise you to alter those plans, or if it is too late for that, to follow your agent with all the support you can get for him. Comrade Syme and I have had an experience which it would take more time to recount than we can afford, if we are to act on it. I will, however, relate the occurrence in detail, even at the risk of losing time, if you really feel that it is essential to the understanding of the problem we have to discuss." He was spinning out his sentences, making them intolerably long and lingering, in the hope of maddening the practical little Doctor into an explosion of impatience which might show his hand. But the little Doctor continued only to stare and smile, and the monologue was uphill work. Syme began to feel a new sickness and despair. The Doctor's smile and silence were not at all like the cataleptic stare and horrible silence which he had confronted in the Professor half an hour before. About the Professor's makeup and all his antics there was always something merely grotesque, like a gollywog. Syme remembered those wild woes of yesterday as one remembers being afraid of Bogy in childhood. But here was daylight; here was a healthy, square-shouldered man in tweeds, not odd save for the accident of his ugly spectacles, not glaring or grinning at all, but smiling steadily and not saying a word. The whole had a sense of unbearable reality. Under the increasing sunlight the colours of the Doctor's complexion, the pattern of his tweeds, grew and expanded outrageously, as such things grow too important in a realistic novel. But his smile was quite slight, the pose of his head polite; the only uncanny thing was his silence. "As I say," resumed the Professor, like a man toiling through heavy sand, "the incident that has occurred to us and has led us to ask for information about the Marquis, is one which you may think it better to have narrated; but as it came in the way of Comrade Syme rather than me--" His words he seemed to be dragging out like words in an anthem; but Syme, who was watching, saw his long fingers rattle quickly on the edge of the crazy table. He read the message, "You must go on. This devil has sucked me dry!" Syme plunged into the breach with that bravado of improvisation which always came to him when he was alarmed. "Yes, the thing really happened to me," he said hastily. "I had the good fortune to fall into conversation with a detective who took me, thanks to my hat, for a respectable person. Wishing to clinch my reputation for respectability, I took him and made him very drunk at the Savoy. Under this influence he became friendly, and told me in so many words that within a day or two they hope to arrest the Marquis in France. "So unless you or I can get on his track--" The Doctor was still smiling in the most friendly way, and his protected eyes were still impenetrable. The Professor signalled to Syme that he would resume his explanation, and he began again with the same elaborate calm. "Syme immediately brought this information to me, and we came here together to see what use you would be inclined to make of it. It seems to me unquestionably urgent that--" All this time Syme had been staring at the Doctor almost as steadily as the Doctor stared at the Professor, but quite without the smile. The nerves of both comrades-in-arms were near snapping under that strain of motionless amiability, when Syme suddenly leant forward and idly tapped the edge of the table. His message to his ally ran, "I have an intuition." The Professor, with scarcely a pause in his monologue, signalled back, "Then sit on it." Syme telegraphed, "It is quite extraordinary." The other answered, "Extraordinary rot!" Syme said, "I am a poet." The other retorted, "You are a dead man." Syme had gone quite red up to his yellow hair, and his eyes were burning feverishly. As he said he had an intuition, and it had risen to a sort of lightheaded certainty. Resuming his symbolic taps, he signalled to his friend, "You scarcely realise how poetic my intuition is. It has that sudden quality we sometimes feel in the coming of spring." He then studied the answer on his friend's fingers. The answer was, "Go to hell!" The Professor then resumed his merely verbal monologue addressed to the Doctor. "Perhaps I should rather say," said Syme on his fingers, "that it resembles that sudden smell of the sea which may be found in the heart of lush woods." His companion disdained to reply. "Or yet again," tapped Syme, "it is positive, as is the passionate red hair of a beautiful woman." The Professor was continuing his speech, but in the middle of it Syme decided to act. He leant across the table, and said in a voice that could not be neglected-- "Dr. Bull!" The Doctor's sleek and smiling head did not move, but they could have sworn that under his dark glasses his eyes darted towards Syme. "Dr. Bull," said Syme, in a voice peculiarly precise and courteous, "would you do me a small favour? Would you be so kind as to take off your spectacles?" The Professor swung round on his seat, and stared at Syme with a sort of frozen fury of astonishment. Syme, like a man who has thrown his life and fortune on the table, leaned forward with a fiery face. The Doctor did not move. For a few seconds there was a silence in which one could hear a pin drop, split once by the single hoot of a distant steamer on the Thames. Then Dr. Bull rose slowly, still smiling, and took off his spectacles. Syme sprang to his feet, stepping backwards a little, like a chemical lecturer from a successful explosion. His eyes were like stars, and for an instant he could only point without speaking. The Professor had also started to his feet, forgetful of his supposed paralysis. He leant on the back of the chair and stared doubtfully at Dr. Bull, as if the Doctor had been turned into a toad before his eyes. And indeed it was almost as great a transformation scene. The two detectives saw sitting in the chair before them a very boyish-looking young man, with very frank and happy hazel eyes, an open expression, cockney clothes like those of a city clerk, and an unquestionable breath about him of being very good and rather commonplace. The smile was still there, but it might have been the first smile of a baby. "I knew I was a poet," cried Syme in a sort of ecstasy. "I knew my intuition was as infallible as the Pope. It was the spectacles that did it! It was all the spectacles. Given those beastly black eyes, and all the rest of him his health and his jolly looks, made him a live devil among dead ones." "It certainly does make a queer difference," said the Professor shakily. "But as regards the project of Dr. Bull--" "Project be damned!" roared Syme, beside himself. "Look at him! Look at his face, look at his collar, look at his blessed boots! You don't suppose, do you, that that thing's an anarchist?" "Syme!" cried the other in an apprehensive agony. "Why, by God," said Syme, "I'll take the risk of that myself! Dr. Bull, I am a police officer. There's my card," and he flung down the blue card upon the table. The Professor still feared that all was lost; but he was loyal. He pulled out his own official card and put it beside his friend's. Then the third man burst out laughing, and for the first time that morning they heard his voice. "I'm awfully glad you chaps have come so early," he said, with a sort of schoolboy flippancy, "for we can all start for France together. Yes, I'm in the force right enough," and he flicked a blue card towards them lightly as a matter of form. Clapping a brisk bowler on his head and resuming his goblin glasses, the Doctor moved so quickly towards the door, that the others instinctively followed him. Syme seemed a little distrait, and as he passed under the doorway he suddenly struck his stick on the stone passage so that it rang. "But Lord God Almighty," he cried out, "if this is all right, there were more damned detectives than there were damned dynamiters at the damned Council!" "We might have fought easily," said Bull; "we were four against three." The Professor was descending the stairs, but his voice came up from below. "No," said the voice, "we were not four against three--we were not so lucky. We were four against One." The others went down the stairs in silence. The young man called Bull, with an innocent courtesy characteristic of him, insisted on going last until they reached the street; but there his own robust rapidity asserted itself unconsciously, and he walked quickly on ahead towards a railway inquiry office, talking to the others over his shoulder. "It is jolly to get some pals," he said. "I've been half dead with the jumps, being quite alone. I nearly flung my arms round Gogol and embraced him, which would have been imprudent. I hope you won't despise me for having been in a blue funk." "All the blue devils in blue hell," said Syme, "contributed to my blue funk! But the worst devil was you and your infernal goggles." The young man laughed delightedly. "Wasn't it a rag?" he said. "Such a simple idea--not my own. I haven't got the brains. You see, I wanted to go into the detective service, especially the anti-dynamite business. But for that purpose they wanted someone to dress up as a dynamiter; and they all swore by blazes that I could never look like a dynamiter. They said my very walk was respectable, and that seen from behind I looked like the British Constitution. They said I looked too healthy and too optimistic, and too reliable and benevolent; they called me all sorts of names at Scotland Yard. They said that if I had been a criminal, I might have made my fortune by looking so like an honest man; but as I had the misfortune to be an honest man, there was not even the remotest chance of my assisting them by ever looking like a criminal. But at last I was brought before some old josser who was high up in the force, and who seemed to have no end of a head on his shoulders. And there the others all talked hopelessly. One asked whether a bushy beard would hide my nice smile; another said that if they blacked my face I might look like a negro anarchist; but this old chap chipped in with a most extraordinary remark. 'A pair of smoked spectacles will do it,' he said positively. 'Look at him now; he looks like an angelic office boy. Put him on a pair of smoked spectacles, and children will scream at the sight of him.' And so it was, by George! When once my eyes were covered, all the rest, smile and big shoulders and short hair, made me look a perfect little devil. As I say, it was simple enough when it was done, like miracles; but that wasn't the really miraculous part of it. There was one really staggering thing about the business, and my head still turns at it." "What was that?" asked Syme. "I'll tell you," answered the man in spectacles. "This big pot in the police who sized me up so that he knew how the goggles would go with my hair and socks--by God, he never saw me at all!" Syme's eyes suddenly flashed on him. "How was that?" he asked. "I thought you talked to him." "So I did," said Bull brightly; "but we talked in a pitch-dark room like a coalcellar. There, you would never have guessed that." "I could not have conceived it," said Syme gravely. "It is indeed a new idea," said the Professor. Their new ally was in practical matters a whirlwind. At the inquiry office he asked with businesslike brevity about the trains for Dover. Having got his information, he bundled the company into a cab, and put them and himself inside a railway carriage before they had properly realised the breathless process. They were already on the Calais boat before conversation flowed freely. "I had already arranged," he explained, "to go to France for my lunch; but I am delighted to have someone to lunch with me. You see, I had to send that beast, the Marquis, over with his bomb, because the President had his eye on me, though God knows how. I'll tell you the story some day. It was perfectly choking. Whenever I tried to slip out of it I saw the President somewhere, smiling out of the bow-window of a club, or taking off his hat to me from the top of an omnibus. I tell you, you can say what you like, that fellow sold himself to the devil; he can be in six places at once." "So you sent the Marquis off, I understand," asked the Professor. "Was it long ago? Shall we be in time to catch him?" "Yes," answered the new guide, "I've timed it all. He'll still be at Calais when we arrive." "But when we do catch him at Calais," said the Professor, "what are we going to do?" At this question the countenance of Dr. Bull fell for the first time. He reflected a little, and then said-- "Theoretically, I suppose, we ought to call the police." "Not I," said Syme. "Theoretically I ought to drown myself first. I promised a poor fellow, who was a real modern pessimist, on my word of honour not to tell the police. I'm no hand at casuistry, but I can't break my word to a modern pessimist. It's like breaking one's word to a child." "I'm in the same boat," said the Professor. "I tried to tell the police and I couldn't, because of some silly oath I took. You see, when I was an actor I was a sort of all-round beast. Perjury or treason is the only crime I haven't committed. If I did that I shouldn't know the difference between right and wrong." "I've been through all that," said Dr. Bull, "and I've made up my mind. I gave my promise to the Secretary--you know him, man who smiles upside down. My friends, that man is the most utterly unhappy man that was ever human. It may be his digestion, or his conscience, or his nerves, or his philosophy of the universe, but he's damned, he's in hell! Well, I can't turn on a man like that, and hunt him down. It's like whipping a leper. I may be mad, but that's how I feel; and there's jolly well the end of it." "I don't think you're mad," said Syme. "I knew you would decide like that when first you--" "Eh?" said Dr. Bull. "When first you took off your spectacles." Dr. Bull smiled a little, and strolled across the deck to look at the sunlit sea. Then he strolled back again, kicking his heels carelessly, and a companionable silence fell between the three men. "Well," said Syme, "it seems that we have all the same kind of morality or immorality, so we had better face the fact that comes of it." "Yes," assented the Professor, "you're quite right; and we must hurry up, for I can see the Grey Nose standing out from France." "The fact that comes of it," said Syme seriously, "is this, that we three are alone on this planet. Gogol has gone, God knows where; perhaps the President has smashed him like a fly. On the Council we are three men against three, like the Romans who held the bridge. But we are worse off than that, first because they can appeal to their organization and we cannot appeal to ours, and second because--" "Because one of those other three men," said the Professor, "is not a man." Syme nodded and was silent for a second or two, then he said-- "My idea is this. We must do something to keep the Marquis in Calais till tomorrow midday. I have turned over twenty schemes in my head. We cannot denounce him as a dynamiter; that is agreed. We cannot get him detained on some trivial charge, for we should have to appear; he knows us, and he would smell a rat. We cannot pretend to keep him on anarchist business; he might swallow much in that way, but not the notion of stopping in Calais while the Czar went safely through Paris. We might try to kidnap him, and lock him up ourselves; but he is a well-known man here. He has a whole bodyguard of friends; he is very strong and brave, and the event is doubtful. The only thing I can see to do is actually to take advantage of the very things that are in the Marquis's favour. I am going to profit by the fact that he is a highly respected nobleman. I am going to profit by the fact that he has many friends and moves in the best society." "What the devil are you talking about?" asked the Professor. "The Symes are first mentioned in the fourteenth century," said Syme; "but there is a tradition that one of them rode behind Bruce at Bannockburn. Since 1350 the tree is quite clear." "He's gone off his head," said the little Doctor, staring. "Our bearings," continued Syme calmly, "are 'argent a chevron gules charged with three cross crosslets of the field.' The motto varies." The Professor seized Syme roughly by the waistcoat. "We are just inshore," he said. "Are you seasick or joking in the wrong place?" "My remarks are almost painfully practical," answered Syme, in an unhurried manner. "The house of St. Eustache also is very ancient. The Marquis cannot deny that he is a gentleman. He cannot deny that I am a gentleman. And in order to put the matter of my social position quite beyond a doubt, I propose at the earliest opportunity to knock his hat off. But here we are in the harbour." They went on shore under the strong sun in a sort of daze. Syme, who had now taken the lead as Bull had taken it in London, led them along a kind of marine parade until he came to some cafes, embowered in a bulk of greenery and overlooking the sea. As he went before them his step was slightly swaggering, and he swung his stick like a sword. He was making apparently for the extreme end of the line of cafes, but he stopped abruptly. With a sharp gesture he motioned them to silence, but he pointed with one gloved finger to a cafe table under a bank of flowering foliage at which sat the Marquis de St. Eustache, his teeth shining in his thick, black beard, and his bold, brown face shadowed by a light yellow straw hat and outlined against the violet sea. CHAPTER X. THE DUEL SYME sat down at a cafe table with his companions, his blue eyes sparkling like the bright sea below, and ordered a bottle of Saumur with a pleased impatience. He was for some reason in a condition of curious hilarity. His spirits were already unnaturally high; they rose as the Saumur sank, and in half an hour his talk was a torrent of nonsense. He professed to be making out a plan of the conversation which was going to ensue between himself and the deadly Marquis. He jotted it down wildly with a pencil. It was arranged like a printed catechism, with questions and answers, and was delivered with an extraordinary rapidity of utterance. "I shall approach. Before taking off his hat, I shall take off my own. I shall say, 'The Marquis de Saint Eustache, I believe.' He will say, 'The celebrated Mr. Syme, I presume.' He will say in the most exquisite French, 'How are you?' I shall reply in the most exquisite Cockney, 'Oh, just the Syme--'" "Oh, shut it," said the man in spectacles. "Pull yourself together, and chuck away that bit of paper. What are you really going to do?" "But it was a lovely catechism," said Syme pathetically. "Do let me read it you. It has only forty-three questions and answers, and some of the Marquis's answers are wonderfully witty. I like to be just to my enemy." "But what's the good of it all?" asked Dr. Bull in exasperation. "It leads up to my challenge, don't you see," said Syme, beaming. "When the Marquis has given the thirty-ninth reply, which runs--" "Has it by any chance occurred to you," asked the Professor, with a ponderous simplicity, "that the Marquis may not say all the forty-three things you have put down for him? In that case, I understand, your own epigrams may appear somewhat more forced." Syme struck the table with a radiant face. "Why, how true that is," he said, "and I never thought of it. Sir, you have an intellect beyond the common. You will make a name." "Oh, you're as drunk as an owl!" said the Doctor. "It only remains," continued Syme quite unperturbed, "to adopt some other method of breaking the ice (if I may so express it) between myself and the man I wish to kill. And since the course of a dialogue cannot be predicted by one of its parties alone (as you have pointed out with such recondite acumen), the only thing to be done, I suppose, is for the one party, as far as possible, to do all the dialogue by himself. And so I will, by George!" And he stood up suddenly, his yellow hair blowing in the slight sea breeze. A band was playing in a cafe chantant hidden somewhere among the trees, and a woman had just stopped singing. On Syme's heated head the bray of the brass band seemed like the jar and jingle of that barrel-organ in Leicester Square, to the tune of which he had once stood up to die. He looked across to the little table where the Marquis sat. The man had two companions now, solemn Frenchmen in frock-coats and silk hats, one of them with the red rosette of the Legion of Honour, evidently people of a solid social position. Besides these black, cylindrical costumes, the Marquis, in his loose straw hat and light spring clothes, looked Bohemian and even barbaric; but he looked the Marquis. Indeed, one might say that he looked the king, with his animal elegance, his scornful eyes, and his proud head lifted against the purple sea. But he was no Christian king, at any rate; he was, rather, some swarthy despot, half Greek, half Asiatic, who in the days when slavery seemed natural looked down on the Mediterranean, on his galley and his groaning slaves. Just so, Syme thought, would the brown-gold face of such a tyrant have shown against the dark green olives and the burning blue. "Are you going to address the meeting?" asked the Professor peevishly, seeing that Syme still stood up without moving. Syme drained his last glass of sparkling wine. "I am," he said, pointing across to the Marquis and his companions, "that meeting. That meeting displeases me. I am going to pull that meeting's great ugly, mahogany-coloured nose." He stepped across swiftly, if not quite steadily. The Marquis, seeing him, arched his black Assyrian eyebrows in surprise, but smiled politely. "You are Mr. Syme, I think," he said. Syme bowed. "And you are the Marquis de Saint Eustache," he said gracefully. "Permit me to pull your nose." He leant over to do so, but the Marquis started backwards, upsetting his chair, and the two men in top hats held Syme back by the shoulders. "This man has insulted me!" said Syme, with gestures of explanation. "Insulted you?" cried the gentleman with the red rosette, "when?" "Oh, just now," said Syme recklessly. "He insulted my mother." "Insulted your mother!" exclaimed the gentleman incredulously. "Well, anyhow," said Syme, conceding a point, "my aunt." "But how can the Marquis have insulted your aunt just now?" said the second gentleman with some legitimate wonder. "He has been sitting here all the time." "Ah, it was what he said!" said Syme darkly. "I said nothing at all," said the Marquis, "except something about the band. I only said that I liked Wagner played well." "It was an allusion to my family," said Syme firmly. "My aunt played Wagner badly. It was a painful subject. We are always being insulted about it." "This seems most extraordinary," said the gentleman who was decore, looking doubtfully at the Marquis. "Oh, I assure you," said Syme earnestly, "the whole of your conversation was simply packed with sinister allusions to my aunt's weaknesses." "This is nonsense!" said the second gentleman. "I for one have said nothing for half an hour except that I liked the singing of that girl with black hair." "Well, there you are again!" said Syme indignantly. "My aunt's was red." "It seems to me," said the other, "that you are simply seeking a pretext to insult the Marquis." "By George!" said Syme, facing round and looking at him, "what a clever chap you are!" The Marquis started up with eyes flaming like a tiger's. "Seeking a quarrel with me!" he cried. "Seeking a fight with me! By God! there was never a man who had to seek long. These gentlemen will perhaps act for me. There are still four hours of daylight. Let us fight this evening." Syme bowed with a quite beautiful graciousness. "Marquis," he said, "your action is worthy of your fame and blood. Permit me to consult for a moment with the gentlemen in whose hands I shall place myself." In three long strides he rejoined his companions, and they, who had seen his champagne-inspired attack and listened to his idiotic explanations, were quite startled at the look of him. For now that he came back to them he was quite sober, a little pale, and he spoke in a low voice of passionate practicality. "I have done it," he said hoarsely. "I have fixed a fight on the beast. But look here, and listen carefully. There is no time for talk. You are my seconds, and everything must come from you. Now you must insist, and insist absolutely, on the duel coming off after seven tomorrow, so as to give me the chance of preventing him from catching the 7.45 for Paris. If he misses that he misses his crime. He can't refuse to meet you on such a small point of time and place. But this is what he will do. He will choose a field somewhere near a wayside station, where he can pick up the train. He is a very good swordsman, and he will trust to killing me in time to catch it. But I can fence well too, and I think I can keep him in play, at any rate, until the train is lost. Then perhaps he may kill me to console his feelings. You understand? Very well then, let me introduce you to some charming friends of mine," and leading them quickly across the parade, he presented them to the Marquis's seconds by two very aristocratic names of which they had not previously heard. Syme was subject to spasms of singular common sense, not otherwise a part of his character. They were (as he said of his impulse about the spectacles) poetic intuitions, and they sometimes rose to the exaltation of prophecy. He had correctly calculated in this case the policy of his opponent. When the Marquis was informed by his seconds that Syme could only fight in the morning, he must fully have realised that an obstacle had suddenly arisen between him and his bomb-throwing business in the capital. Naturally he could not explain this objection to his friends, so he chose the course which Syme had predicted. He induced his seconds to settle on a small meadow not far from the railway, and he trusted to the fatality of the first engagement. When he came down very coolly to the field of honour, no one could have guessed that he had any anxiety about a journey; his hands were in his pockets, his straw hat on the back of his head, his handsome face brazen in the sun. But it might have struck a stranger as odd that there appeared in his train, not only his seconds carrying the sword-case, but two of his servants carrying a portmanteau and a luncheon basket. Early as was the hour, the sun soaked everything in warmth, and Syme was vaguely surprised to see so many spring flowers burning gold and silver in the tall grass in which the whole company stood almost knee-deep. With the exception of the Marquis, all the men were in sombre and solemn morning-dress, with hats like black chimney-pots; the little Doctor especially, with the addition of his black spectacles, looked like an undertaker in a farce. Syme could not help feeling a comic contrast between this funereal church parade of apparel and the rich and glistening meadow, growing wild flowers everywhere. But, indeed, this comic contrast between the yellow blossoms and the black hats was but a symbol of the tragic contrast between the yellow blossoms and the black business. On his right was a

smiling

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

words as it were fixed in our entrails: and the examples of Thy servants, whom for black Thou hadst made bright, and for dead, alive, being piled together in the receptacle of our thoughts, kindled and burned up that our heavy torpor, that we should not sink down to the abyss; and they fired us so vehemently, that all the blasts of subtle tongues from gainsayers might only inflame us the more fiercely, not extinguish us. Nevertheless, because for Thy Name's sake which Thou hast hallowed throughout the earth, this our vow and purpose might also find some to commend it, it seemed like ostentation not to wait for the vacation now so near, but to quit beforehand a public profession, which was before the eyes of all; so that all looking on this act of mine, and observing how near was the time of vintage which I wished to anticipate, would talk much of me, as if I had desired to appear some great one. And what end had it served me, that people should repute and dispute upon my purpose, and that our good should be evil spoken of. Moreover, it had at first troubled me that in this very summer my lungs began to give way, amid too great literary labour, and to breathe deeply with difficulty, and by the pain in my chest to show that they were injured, and to refuse any full or lengthened speaking; this had troubled me, for it almost constrained me of necessity to lay down that burden of teaching, or, if I could be cured and recover, at least to intermit it. But when the full wish for leisure, that I might see how that Thou art the Lord, arose, and was fixed, in me; my God, Thou knowest, I began even to rejoice that I had this secondary, and that no feigned, excuse, which might something moderate the offence taken by those who, for their sons' sake, wished me never to have the freedom of Thy sons. Full then of such joy, I endured till that interval of time were run; it may have been some twenty days, yet they were endured manfully; endured, for the covetousness which aforetime bore a part of this heavy business, had left me, and I remained alone, and had been overwhelmed, had not patience taken its place. Perchance, some of Thy servants, my brethren, may say that I sinned in this, that with a heart fully set on Thy service, I suffered myself to sit even one hour in the chair of lies. Nor would I be contentious. But hast not Thou, O most merciful Lord, pardoned and remitted this sin also, with my other most horrible and deadly sins, in the holy water? Verecundus was worn down with care about this our blessedness, for that being held back by bonds, whereby he was most straitly bound, he saw that he should be severed from us. For himself was not yet a Christian, his wife one of the faithful; and yet hereby, more rigidly than by any other chain, was he let and hindered from the journey which we had now essayed. For he would not, he said, be a Christian on any other terms than on those he could not. However, he offered us courteously to remain at his country-house so long as we should stay there. Thou, O Lord, shalt reward him in the resurrection of the just, seeing Thou hast already given him the lot of the righteous. For although, in our absence, being now at Rome, he was seized with bodily sickness, and therein being made a Christian, and one of the faithful, he departed this life; yet hadst Thou mercy not on him only, but on us also: lest remembering the exceeding kindness of our friend towards us, yet unable to number him among Thy flock, we should be agonised with intolerable sorrow. Thanks unto Thee, our God, we are Thine: Thy suggestions and consolations tell us, Faithful in promises, Thou now requitest Verecundus for his country-house of Cassiacum, where from the fever of the world we reposed in Thee, with the eternal freshness of Thy Paradise: for that Thou hast forgiven him his sins upon earth, in that rich mountain, that mountain which yieldeth milk, Thine own mountain. He then had at that time sorrow, but Nebridius joy. For although he also, not being yet a Christian, had fallen into the pit of that most pernicious error, believing the flesh of Thy Son to be a phantom: yet emerging thence, he believed as we did; not as yet endued with any Sacraments of Thy Church, but a most ardent searcher out of truth. Whom, not long after our conversion and regeneration by Thy Baptism, being also a faithful member of the Church Catholic, and serving Thee in perfect chastity and continence amongst his people in Africa, his whole house having through him first been made Christian, didst Thou release from the flesh; and now he lives in Abraham's bosom. Whatever that be, which is signified by that bosom, there lives my Nebridius, my sweet friend, and Thy child, O Lord, adopted of a freed man: there he liveth. For what other place is there for such a soul? There he liveth, whereof he asked much of me, a poor inexperienced man. Now lays he not his ear to my mouth, but his spiritual mouth unto Thy fountain, and drinketh as much as he can receive, wisdom in proportion to his thirst, endlessly happy. Nor do I think that he is so inebriated therewith, as to forget me; seeing Thou, Lord, Whom he drinketh, art mindful of us. So were we then, comforting Verecundus, who sorrowed, as far as friendship permitted, that our conversion was of such sort; and exhorting him to become faithful, according to his measure, namely, of a married estate; and awaiting Nebridius to follow us, which, being so near, he was all but doing: and so, lo! those days rolled by at length; for long and many they seemed, for the love I bare to the easeful liberty, that I might sing to Thee, from my inmost marrow, My heart hath said unto Thee, I have sought Thy face: Thy face, Lord, will I seek. Now was the day come wherein I was in deed to be freed of my Rhetoric Professorship, whereof in thought I was already freed. And it was done. Thou didst rescue my tongue, whence Thou hadst before rescued my heart. And I blessed Thee, rejoicing; retiring with all mine to the villa. What I there did in writing, which was now enlisted in Thy service, though still, in this breathing-time as it were, panting from the school of pride, my books may witness, as well what I debated with others, as what with myself alone, before Thee: what with Nebridius, who was absent, my Epistles bear witness. And when shall I have time to rehearse all Thy great benefits towards us at that time, especially when hasting on to yet greater mercies? For my remembrance recalls me, and pleasant is it to me, O Lord, to confess to Thee, by what inward goads Thou tamedst me; and how Thou hast evened me, lowering the mountains and hills of my high imaginations, straightening my crookedness, and smoothing my rough ways; and how Thou also subduedst the brother of my heart, Alypius, unto the name of Thy Only Begotten, our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, which he would not at first vouchsafe to have inserted in our writings. For rather would he have them savour of the lofty cedars of the Schools, which the Lord hath now broken down, than of the wholesome herbs of the Church, the antidote against serpents. Oh, in what accents spake I unto Thee, my God, when I read the Psalms of David, those faithful songs, and sounds of devotion, which allow of no swelling spirit, as yet a Catechumen, and a novice in Thy real love, resting in that villa, with Alypius a Catechumen, my mother cleaving to us, in female garb with masculine faith, with the tranquillity of age, motherly love, Christian piety! Oh, what accents did I utter unto Thee in those Psalms, and how was I by them kindled towards Thee, and on fire to rehearse them, if possible, through the whole world, against the pride of mankind! And yet they are sung through the whole world, nor can any hide himself from Thy heat. With what vehement and bitter sorrow was I angered at the Manichees! and again I pitied them, for they knew not those Sacraments, those medicines, and were mad against the antidote which might have recovered them of their madness. How I would they had then been somewhere near me, and without my knowing that they were there, could have beheld my countenance, and heard my words, when I read the fourth Psalm in that time of my rest, and how that Psalm wrought upon me: When I called, the God of my righteousness heard me; in tribulation Thou enlargedst me. Have mercy upon me, O Lord, and hear my prayer. Would that what I uttered on these words, they could hear, without my knowing whether they heard, lest they should think I spake it for their sakes! Because in truth neither should I speak the same things, nor in the same way, if I perceived that they heard and saw me; nor if I spake them would they so receive them, as when I spake by and for myself before Thee, out of the natural feelings of my soul. I trembled for fear, and again kindled with hope, and with rejoicing in Thy mercy, O Father; and all issued forth both by mine eyes and voice, when Thy good Spirit turning unto us, said, O ye sons of men, how long slow of heart? why do ye love vanity, and seek after leasing? For I had loved vanity, and sought after leasing. And Thou, O Lord, hadst already magnified Thy Holy One, raising Him from the dead, and setting Him at Thy right hand, whence from on high He should send His promise, the Comforter, the Spirit of truth. And He had already sent Him, but I knew it not; He had sent Him, because He was now magnified, rising again from the dead, and ascending into heaven. For till then, the Spirit was not yet given, because Jesus was not yet glorified. And the prophet cries out, How long, slow of heart? why do ye love vanity, and seek after leasing? Know this, that the Lord hath magnified His Holy One. He cries out, How long? He cries out, Know this: and I so long, not knowing, loved vanity, and sought after leasing: and therefore I heard and trembled, because it was spoken unto such as I remembered myself to have been. For in those phantoms which I had held for truths, was there vanity and leasing; and I spake aloud many things earnestly and forcibly, in the bitterness of my remembrance. Which would they had heard, who yet love vanity and seek after leasing! They would perchance have been troubled, and have vomited it up; and Thou wouldest hear them when they cried unto Thee; for by a true death in the flesh did He die for us, who now intercedeth unto Thee for us. I further read, Be angry, and sin not. And how was I moved, O my God, who had now learned to be angry at myself for things past, that I might not sin in time to come! Yea, to be justly angry; for that it was not another nature of a people of darkness which sinned for me, as they say who are not angry at themselves, and treasure up wrath against the day of wrath, and of the revelation of Thy just judgment. Nor were my good things now without, nor sought with the eyes of flesh in that earthly sun; for they that would have joy from without soon become vain, and waste themselves on the things seen and temporal, and in their famished thoughts do lick their very shadows. Oh that they were wearied out with their famine, and said, Who will show us good things? And we would say, and they hear, The light of Thy countenance is sealed upon us. For we are not that light which enlighteneth every man, but we are enlightened by Thee; that having been sometimes darkness, we may be light in Thee. Oh that they could see the eternal Internal, which having tasted, I was grieved that I could not show It them, so long as they brought me their heart in their eyes roving abroad from Thee, while they said, Who will show us good things? For there, where I was angry within myself in my chamber, where I was inwardly pricked, where I had sacrificed, slaying my old man and commencing the purpose of a new life, putting my trust in Thee,--there hadst Thou begun to grow sweet unto me, and hadst put gladness in my heart. And I cried out, as I read this outwardly, finding it inwardly. Nor would I be multiplied with worldly goods; wasting away time, and wasted by time; whereas I had in Thy eternal Simple Essence other corn, and wine, and oil. And with a loud cry of my heart I cried out in the next verse, O in peace, O for The Self-same! O what said he, I will lay me down and sleep, for who shall hinder us, when cometh to pass that saying which is written, Death is swallowed up in victory? And Thou surpassingly art the Self-same, Who art not changed; and in Thee is rest which forgetteth all toil, for there is none other with Thee, nor are we to seek those many other things, which are not what Thou art: but Thou, Lord, alone hast made me dwell in hope. I read, and kindled; nor found I what to do to those deaf and dead, of whom myself had been, a pestilent person, a bitter and a blind bawler against those writings, which are honied with the honey of heaven, and lightsome with Thine own light: and I was consumed with zeal at the enemies of this Scripture. When shall I recall all which passed in those holy-days? Yet neither have I forgotten, nor will I pass over the severity of Thy scourge, and the wonderful swiftness of Thy mercy. Thou didst then torment me with pain in my teeth; which when it had come to such height that I could not speak, it came into my heart to desire all my friends present to pray for me to Thee, the God of all manner of health. And this I wrote on wax, and gave it them to read. Presently so soon as with humble devotion we had bowed our knees, that pain went away. But what pain? or how went it away? I was affrighted, O my Lord, my God; for from infancy I had never experienced the like. And the power of Thy Nod was deeply conveyed to me, and rejoicing in faith, I praised Thy Name. And that faith suffered me not to be at ease about my past sins, which were not yet forgiven me by Thy baptism. The vintage-vacation ended, I gave notice to the Milanese to provide their scholars with another master to sell words to them; for that I had both made choice to serve Thee, and through my difficulty of breathing and pain in my chest was not equal to the Professorship. And by letters I signified to Thy Prelate, the holy man Ambrose, my former errors and present desires, begging his advice what of Thy Scriptures I had best read, to become readier and fitter for receiving so great grace. He recommended Isaiah the Prophet: I believe, because he above the rest is a more clear foreshower of the Gospel and of the calling of the Gentiles. But I, not understanding the first lesson in him, and imagining the whole to be like it, laid it by, to be resumed when better practised in our Lord's own words. Thence, when the time was come wherein I was to give in my name, we left the country and returned to Milan. It pleased Alypius also to be with me born again in Thee, being already clothed with the humility befitting Thy Sacraments; and a most valiant tamer of the body, so as, with unwonted venture, to wear the frozen ground of Italy with his bare feet. We joined with us the boy Adeodatus, born after the flesh, of my sin. Excellently hadst Thou made him. He was not quite fifteen, and in wit surpassed many grave and learned men. I confess unto Thee Thy gifts, O Lord my God, Creator of all, and abundantly able to reform our deformities: for I had no part in that boy, but the sin. For that we brought him up in Thy discipline, it was Thou, none else, had inspired us with it. I confess unto Thee Thy gifts. There is a book of ours entitled The Master; it is a dialogue between him and me. Thou knowest that all there ascribed to the person conversing with me were his ideas, in his sixteenth year. Much besides, and yet more admirable, I found in him. That talent struck awe into me. And who but Thou could be the workmaster of such wonders? Soon didst Thou take his life from the earth: and I now remember him without anxiety, fearing nothing for his childhood or youth, or his whole self. Him we joined with us, our contemporary in grace, to be brought up in Thy discipline: and we were baptised, and anxiety for our past life vanished from us. Nor was I sated in those days with the wondrous sweetness of considering the depth of Thy counsels concerning the salvation of mankind. How did I weep, in Thy Hymns and Canticles, touched to the quick by the voices of Thy sweet-attuned Church! The voices flowed into mine ears, and the Truth distilled into my heart, whence the affections of my devotion overflowed, and tears ran down, and happy was I therein. Not long had the Church of Milan begun to use this kind of consolation and exhortation, the brethren zealously joining with harmony of voice and hearts. For it was a year, or not much more, that Justina, mother to the Emperor Valentinian, a child, persecuted Thy servant Ambrose, in favour of her heresy, to which she was seduced by the Arians. The devout people kept watch in the Church, ready to die with their Bishop Thy servant. There my mother Thy handmaid, bearing a chief part of those anxieties and watchings, lived for prayer. We, yet unwarmed by the heat of Thy Spirit, still were stirred up by the sight of the amazed and disquieted city. Then it was first instituted that after the manner of the Eastern Churches, Hymns and Psalms should be sung, lest the people should wax faint through the tediousness of sorrow: and from that day to this the custom is retained, divers (yea, almost all) Thy congregations, throughout other parts of the world following herein. Then didst Thou by a vision discover to Thy forenamed Bishop where the bodies of Gervasius and Protasius the martyrs lay hid (whom Thou hadst in Thy secret treasury stored uncorrupted so many years), whence Thou mightest seasonably produce them to repress the fury of a woman, but an Empress. For when they were discovered and dug up, and with due honour translated to the Ambrosian Basilica, not only they who were vexed with unclean spirits (the devils confessing themselves) were cured, but a certain man who had for many years been blind, a citizen, and well known to the city, asking and hearing the reason of the people's confused joy, sprang forth desiring his guide to lead him thither. Led thither, he begged to be allowed to touch with his handkerchief the bier of Thy saints, whose death is precious in Thy sight. Which when he had done, and put to his eyes, they were forthwith opened. Thence did the fame spread, thence Thy praises glowed, shone; thence the mind of that enemy, though not turned to the soundness of believing, was yet turned back from her fury of persecuting. Thanks to Thee, O my God. Whence and whither hast Thou thus led my remembrance, that I should confess these things also unto Thee? which great though they be, I had passed by in forgetfulness. And yet then, when the odour of Thy ointments was so fragrant, did we not run after Thee. Therefore did I more weep among the singing of Thy Hymns, formerly sighing after Thee, and at length breathing in Thee, as far as the breath may enter into this our house of grass. Thou that makest men to dwell of one mind in one house, didst join with us Euodius also, a young man of our own city. Who being an officer of Court, was before us converted to Thee and baptised: and quitting his secular warfare, girded himself to Thine. We were together, about to dwell together in our devout purpose. We sought where we might serve Thee most usefully, and were together returning to Africa: whitherward being as far as Ostia, my mother departed this life. Much I omit, as hastening much. Receive my confessions and thanksgivings, O my God, for innumerable things whereof I am silent. But I will not omit whatsoever my soul would bring forth concerning that Thy handmaid, who brought me forth, both in the flesh, that I might be born to this temporal light, and in heart, that I might be born to Light eternal. Not her gifts, but Thine in her, would I speak of; for neither did she make nor educate herself. Thou createdst her; nor did her father and mother know what a one should come from them. And the sceptre of Thy Christ, the discipline of Thine only Son, in a Christian house, a good member of Thy Church, educated her in Thy fear. Yet for her good discipline was she wont to commend not so much her mother's diligence, as that of a certain decrepit maid-servant, who had carried her father when a child, as little ones used to be carried at the backs of elder girls. For which reason, and for her great age, and excellent conversation, was she, in that Christian family, well respected by its heads. Whence also the charge of her master's daughters was entrusted to her, to which she gave diligent heed, restraining them earnestly, when necessary, with a holy severity, and teaching them with a grave discretion. For, except at those hours wherein they were most temporately fed at their parents' table, she would not suffer them, though parched with thirst, to drink even water; preventing an evil custom, and adding this wholesome advice: "Ye drink water now, because you have not wine in your power; but when you come to be married, and be made mistresses of cellars and cupboards, you will scorn water, but the custom of drinking will abide." By this method of instruction, and the authority she had, she refrained the greediness of childhood, and moulded their very thirst to such an excellent moderation that what they should not, that they would not. And yet (as Thy handmaid told me her son) there had crept upon her a love of wine. For when (as the manner was) she, as though a sober maiden, was bidden by her parents to draw wine out of the hogshed, holding the vessel under the opening, before she poured the wine into the flagon, she sipped a little with the tip of her lips; for more her instinctive feelings refused. For this she did, not out of any desire of drink, but out of the exuberance of youth, whereby it boils over in mirthful freaks, which in youthful spirits are wont to be kept under by the gravity of their elders. And thus by adding to that little, daily littles (for whoso despiseth little things shall fall by little and little), she had fallen into such a habit as greedily to drink off her little cup brim-full almost of wine. Where was then that discreet old woman, and that her earnest countermanding? Would aught avail against a secret disease, if Thy healing hand, O Lord, watched not over us? Father, mother, and governors absent, Thou present, who createdst, who callest, who also by those set over us, workest something towards the salvation of our souls, what didst Thou then, O my God? how didst Thou cure her? how heal her? didst Thou not out of another soul bring forth a hard and a sharp taunt, like a lancet out of Thy secret store, and with one touch remove all that foul stuff? For a maid-servant with whom she used to go to the cellar, falling to words (as it happens) with her little mistress, when alone with her, taunted her with this fault, with most bitter insult, calling her wine-bibber. With which taunt she, stung to the quick, saw the foulness of her fault, and instantly condemned and forsook it. As flattering friends pervert, so reproachful enemies mostly correct. Yet not what by them Thou doest, but what themselves purposed, dost Thou repay them. For she in her anger sought to vex her young mistress, not to amend her; and did it in private, either for that the time and place of the quarrel so found them; or lest herself also should have anger, for discovering it thus late. But Thou, Lord, Governor of all in heaven and earth, who turnest to Thy purposes the deepest currents, and the ruled turbulence of the tide of times, didst by the very unhealthiness of one soul heal another; lest any, when he observes this, should ascribe it to his own power, even when another, whom he wished to be reformed, is reformed through words of his. Brought up thus modestly and soberly, and made subject rather by Thee to her parents, than by her parents to Thee, so soon as she was of marriageable age, being bestowed upon a husband, she served him as her lord; and did her diligence to win him unto Thee, preaching Thee unto him by her conversation; by which Thou ornamentedst her, making her reverently amiable, and admirable unto her husband. And she so endured the wronging of her bed as never to have any quarrel with her husband thereon. For she looked for Thy mercy upon him, that believing in Thee, he might be made chaste. But besides this, he was fervid, as in his affections, so in anger: but she had learnt not to resist an angry husband, not in deed only, but not even in word. Only when he was smoothed and tranquil, and in a temper to receive it, she would give an account of her actions, if haply he had overhastily taken offence. In a word, while many matrons, who had milder husbands, yet bore even in their faces marks of shame, would in familiar talk blame their husbands' lives, she would blame their tongues, giving them, as in jest, earnest advice: "That from the time they heard the marriage writings read to them, they should account them as indentures, whereby they were made servants; and so, remembering their condition, ought not to set themselves up against their lords." And when they, knowing what a choleric husband she endured, marvelled that it had never been heard, nor by any token perceived, that Patricius had beaten his wife, or that there had been any domestic difference between them, even for one day, and confidentially asking the reason, she taught them her practice above mentioned. Those wives who observed it found the good, and returned thanks; those who observed it not, found no relief, and suffered. Her mother-in-law also, at first by whisperings of evil servants incensed against her, she so overcame by observance and persevering endurance and meekness, that she of her own accord discovered to her son the meddling tongues whereby the domestic peace betwixt her and her daughter-in-law had been disturbed, asking him to correct them. Then, when in compliance with his mother, and for the well-ordering of the family, he had with stripes corrected those discovered, at her will who had discovered them, she promised the like reward to any who, to please her, should speak ill of her daughter-in-law to her: and none now venturing, they lived together with a remarkable sweetness of mutual kindness. This great gift also thou bestowedst, O my God, my mercy, upon that good handmaid of Thine, in whose womb Thou createdst me, that between any disagreeing and discordant parties where she was able, she showed herself such a peacemaker, that hearing on both sides most bitter things, such as swelling and indigested choler uses to break out into, when the crudities of enmities are breathed out in sour discourses to a present friend against an absent enemy, she never would disclose aught of the one unto the other, but what might tend to their reconcilement. A small good this might appear to me, did I not to my grief know numberless persons, who through some horrible and wide-spreading contagion of sin, not only disclose to persons mutually angered things said in anger, but add withal things never spoken, whereas to humane humanity, it ought to seem a light thing not to torment or increase ill will by ill words, unless one study withal by good words to quench it. Such was she, Thyself, her most inward Instructor, teaching her in the school of

stating

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

words as it were fixed in our entrails: and the examples of Thy servants, whom for black Thou hadst made bright, and for dead, alive, being piled together in the receptacle of our thoughts, kindled and burned up that our heavy torpor, that we should not sink down to the abyss; and they fired us so vehemently, that all the blasts of subtle tongues from gainsayers might only inflame us the more fiercely, not extinguish us. Nevertheless, because for Thy Name's sake which Thou hast hallowed throughout the earth, this our vow and purpose might also find some to commend it, it seemed like ostentation not to wait for the vacation now so near, but to quit beforehand a public profession, which was before the eyes of all; so that all looking on this act of mine, and observing how near was the time of vintage which I wished to anticipate, would talk much of me, as if I had desired to appear some great one. And what end had it served me, that people should repute and dispute upon my purpose, and that our good should be evil spoken of. Moreover, it had at first troubled me that in this very summer my lungs began to give way, amid too great literary labour, and to breathe deeply with difficulty, and by the pain in my chest to show that they were injured, and to refuse any full or lengthened speaking; this had troubled me, for it almost constrained me of necessity to lay down that burden of teaching, or, if I could be cured and recover, at least to intermit it. But when the full wish for leisure, that I might see how that Thou art the Lord, arose, and was fixed, in me; my God, Thou knowest, I began even to rejoice that I had this secondary, and that no feigned, excuse, which might something moderate the offence taken by those who, for their sons' sake, wished me never to have the freedom of Thy sons. Full then of such joy, I endured till that interval of time were run; it may have been some twenty days, yet they were endured manfully; endured, for the covetousness which aforetime bore a part of this heavy business, had left me, and I remained alone, and had been overwhelmed, had not patience taken its place. Perchance, some of Thy servants, my brethren, may say that I sinned in this, that with a heart fully set on Thy service, I suffered myself to sit even one hour in the chair of lies. Nor would I be contentious. But hast not Thou, O most merciful Lord, pardoned and remitted this sin also, with my other most horrible and deadly sins, in the holy water? Verecundus was worn down with care about this our blessedness, for that being held back by bonds, whereby he was most straitly bound, he saw that he should be severed from us. For himself was not yet a Christian, his wife one of the faithful; and yet hereby, more rigidly than by any other chain, was he let and hindered from the journey which we had now essayed. For he would not, he said, be a Christian on any other terms than on those he could not. However, he offered us courteously to remain at his country-house so long as we should stay there. Thou, O Lord, shalt reward him in the resurrection of the just, seeing Thou hast already given him the lot of the righteous. For although, in our absence, being now at Rome, he was seized with bodily sickness, and therein being made a Christian, and one of the faithful, he departed this life; yet hadst Thou mercy not on him only, but on us also: lest remembering the exceeding kindness of our friend towards us, yet unable to number him among Thy flock, we should be agonised with intolerable sorrow. Thanks unto Thee, our God, we are Thine: Thy suggestions and consolations tell us, Faithful in promises, Thou now requitest Verecundus for his country-house of Cassiacum, where from the fever of the world we reposed in Thee, with the eternal freshness of Thy Paradise: for that Thou hast forgiven him his sins upon earth, in that rich mountain, that mountain which yieldeth milk, Thine own mountain. He then had at that time sorrow, but Nebridius joy. For although he also, not being yet a Christian, had fallen into the pit of that most pernicious error, believing the flesh of Thy Son to be a phantom: yet emerging thence, he believed as we did; not as yet endued with any Sacraments of Thy Church, but a most ardent searcher out of truth. Whom, not long after our conversion and regeneration by Thy Baptism, being also a faithful member of the Church Catholic, and serving Thee in perfect chastity and continence amongst his people in Africa, his whole house having through him first been made Christian, didst Thou release from the flesh; and now he lives in Abraham's bosom. Whatever that be, which is signified by that bosom, there lives my Nebridius, my sweet friend, and Thy child, O Lord, adopted of a freed man: there he liveth. For what other place is there for such a soul? There he liveth, whereof he asked much of me, a poor inexperienced man. Now lays he not his ear to my mouth, but his spiritual mouth unto Thy fountain, and drinketh as much as he can receive, wisdom in proportion to his thirst, endlessly happy. Nor do I think that he is so inebriated therewith, as to forget me; seeing Thou, Lord, Whom he drinketh, art mindful of us. So were we then, comforting Verecundus, who sorrowed, as far as friendship permitted, that our conversion was of such sort; and exhorting him to become faithful, according to his measure, namely, of a married estate; and awaiting Nebridius to follow us, which, being so near, he was all but doing: and so, lo! those days rolled by at length; for long and many they seemed, for the love I bare to the easeful liberty, that I might sing to Thee, from my inmost marrow, My heart hath said unto Thee, I have sought Thy face: Thy face, Lord, will I seek. Now was the day come wherein I was in deed to be freed of my Rhetoric Professorship, whereof in thought I was already freed. And it was done. Thou didst rescue my tongue, whence Thou hadst before rescued my heart. And I blessed Thee, rejoicing; retiring with all mine to the villa. What I there did in writing, which was now enlisted in Thy service, though still, in this breathing-time as it were, panting from the school of pride, my books may witness, as well what I debated with others, as what with myself alone, before Thee: what with Nebridius, who was absent, my Epistles bear witness. And when shall I have time to rehearse all Thy great benefits towards us at that time, especially when hasting on to yet greater mercies? For my remembrance recalls me, and pleasant is it to me, O Lord, to confess to Thee, by what inward goads Thou tamedst me; and how Thou hast evened me, lowering the mountains and hills of my high imaginations, straightening my crookedness, and smoothing my rough ways; and how Thou also subduedst the brother of my heart, Alypius, unto the name of Thy Only Begotten, our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, which he would not at first vouchsafe to have inserted in our writings. For rather would he have them savour of the lofty cedars of the Schools, which the Lord hath now broken down, than of the wholesome herbs of the Church, the antidote against serpents. Oh, in what accents spake I unto Thee, my God, when I read the Psalms of David, those faithful songs, and sounds of devotion, which allow of no swelling spirit, as yet a Catechumen, and a novice in Thy real love, resting in that villa, with Alypius a Catechumen, my mother cleaving to us, in female garb with masculine faith, with the tranquillity of age, motherly love, Christian piety! Oh, what accents did I utter unto Thee in those Psalms, and how was I by them kindled towards Thee, and on fire to rehearse them, if possible, through the whole world, against the pride of mankind! And yet they are sung through the whole world, nor can any hide himself from Thy heat. With what vehement and bitter sorrow was I angered at the Manichees! and again I pitied them, for they knew not those Sacraments, those medicines, and were mad against the antidote which might have recovered them of their madness. How I would they had then been somewhere near me, and without my knowing that they were there, could have beheld my countenance, and heard my words, when I read the fourth Psalm in that time of my rest, and how that Psalm wrought upon me: When I called, the God of my righteousness heard me; in tribulation Thou enlargedst me. Have mercy upon me, O Lord, and hear my prayer. Would that what I uttered on these words, they could hear, without my knowing whether they heard, lest they should think I spake it for their sakes! Because in truth neither should I speak the same things, nor in the same way, if I perceived that they heard and saw me; nor if I spake them would they so receive them, as when I spake by and for myself before Thee, out of the natural feelings of my soul. I trembled for fear, and again kindled with hope, and with rejoicing in Thy mercy, O Father; and all issued forth both by mine eyes and voice, when Thy good Spirit turning unto us, said, O ye sons of men, how long slow of heart? why do ye love vanity, and seek after leasing? For I had loved vanity, and sought after leasing. And Thou, O Lord, hadst already magnified Thy Holy One, raising Him from the dead, and setting Him at Thy right hand, whence from on high He should send His promise, the Comforter, the Spirit of truth. And He had already sent Him, but I knew it not; He had sent Him, because He was now magnified, rising again from the dead, and ascending into heaven. For till then, the Spirit was not yet given, because Jesus was not yet glorified. And the prophet cries out, How long, slow of heart? why do ye love vanity, and seek after leasing? Know this, that the Lord hath magnified His Holy One. He cries out, How long? He cries out, Know this: and I so long, not knowing, loved vanity, and sought after leasing: and therefore I heard and trembled, because it was spoken unto such as I remembered myself to have been. For in those phantoms which I had held for truths, was there vanity and leasing; and I spake aloud many things earnestly and forcibly, in the bitterness of my remembrance. Which would they had heard, who yet love vanity and seek after leasing! They would perchance have been troubled, and have vomited it up; and Thou wouldest hear them when they cried unto Thee; for by a true death in the flesh did He die for us, who now intercedeth unto Thee for us. I further read, Be angry, and sin not. And how was I moved, O my God, who had now learned to be angry at myself for things past, that I might not sin in time to come! Yea, to be justly angry; for that it was not another nature of a people of darkness which sinned for me, as they say who are not angry at themselves, and treasure up wrath against the day of wrath, and of the revelation of Thy just judgment. Nor were my good things now without, nor sought with the eyes of flesh in that earthly sun; for they that would have joy from without soon become vain, and waste themselves on the things seen and temporal, and in their famished thoughts do lick their very shadows. Oh that they were wearied out with their famine, and said, Who will show us good things? And we would say, and they hear, The light of Thy countenance is sealed upon us. For we are not that light which enlighteneth every man, but we are enlightened by Thee; that having been sometimes darkness, we may be light in Thee. Oh that they could see the eternal Internal, which having tasted, I was grieved that I could not show It them, so long as they brought me their heart in their eyes roving abroad from Thee, while they said, Who will show us good things? For there, where I was angry within myself in my chamber, where I was inwardly pricked, where I had sacrificed, slaying my old man and commencing the purpose of a new life, putting my trust in Thee,--there hadst Thou begun to grow sweet unto me, and hadst put gladness in my heart. And I cried out, as I read this outwardly, finding it inwardly. Nor would I be multiplied with worldly goods; wasting away time, and wasted by time; whereas I had in Thy eternal Simple Essence other corn, and wine, and oil. And with a loud cry of my heart I cried out in the next verse, O in peace, O for The Self-same! O what said he, I will lay me down and sleep, for who shall hinder us, when cometh to pass that saying which is written, Death is swallowed up in victory? And Thou surpassingly art the Self-same, Who art not changed; and in Thee is rest which forgetteth all toil, for there is none other with Thee, nor are we to seek those many other things, which are not what Thou art: but Thou, Lord, alone hast made me dwell in hope. I read, and kindled; nor found I what to do to those deaf and dead, of whom myself had been, a pestilent person, a bitter and a blind bawler against those writings, which are honied with the honey of heaven, and lightsome with Thine own light: and I was consumed with zeal at the enemies of this Scripture. When shall I recall all which passed in those holy-days? Yet neither have I forgotten, nor will I pass over the severity of Thy scourge, and the wonderful swiftness of Thy mercy. Thou didst then torment me with pain in my teeth; which when it had come to such height that I could not speak, it came into my heart to desire all my friends present to pray for me to Thee, the God of all manner of health. And this I wrote on wax, and gave it them to read. Presently so soon as with humble devotion we had bowed our knees, that pain went away. But what pain? or how went it away? I was affrighted, O my Lord, my God; for from infancy I had never experienced the like. And the power of Thy Nod was deeply conveyed to me, and rejoicing in faith, I praised Thy Name. And that faith suffered me not to be at ease about my past sins, which were not yet forgiven me by Thy baptism. The vintage-vacation ended, I gave notice to the Milanese to provide their scholars with another master to sell words to them; for that I had both made choice to serve Thee, and through my difficulty of breathing and pain in my chest was not equal to the Professorship. And by letters I signified to Thy Prelate, the holy man Ambrose, my former errors and present desires, begging his advice what of Thy Scriptures I had best read, to become readier and fitter for receiving so great grace. He recommended Isaiah the Prophet: I believe, because he above the rest is a more clear foreshower of the Gospel and of the calling of the Gentiles. But I, not understanding the first lesson in him, and imagining the whole to be like it, laid it by, to be resumed when better practised in our Lord's own words. Thence, when the time was come wherein I was to give in my name, we left the country and returned to Milan. It pleased Alypius also to be with me born again in Thee, being already clothed with the humility befitting Thy Sacraments; and a most valiant tamer of the body, so as, with unwonted venture, to wear the frozen ground of Italy with his bare feet. We joined with us the boy Adeodatus, born after the flesh, of my sin. Excellently hadst Thou made him. He was not quite fifteen, and in wit surpassed many grave and learned men. I confess unto Thee Thy gifts, O Lord my God, Creator of all, and abundantly able to reform our deformities: for I had no part in that boy, but the sin. For that we brought him up in Thy discipline, it was Thou, none else, had inspired us with it. I confess unto Thee Thy gifts. There is a book of ours entitled The Master; it is a dialogue between him and me. Thou knowest that all there ascribed to the person conversing with me were his ideas, in his sixteenth year. Much besides, and yet more admirable, I found in him. That talent struck awe into me. And who but Thou could be the workmaster of such wonders? Soon didst Thou take his life from the earth: and I now remember him without anxiety, fearing nothing for his childhood or youth, or his whole self. Him we joined with us, our contemporary in grace, to be brought up in Thy discipline: and we were baptised, and anxiety for our past life vanished from us. Nor was I sated in those days with the wondrous sweetness of considering the depth of Thy counsels concerning the salvation of mankind. How did I weep, in Thy Hymns and Canticles, touched to the quick by the voices of Thy sweet-attuned Church! The voices flowed into mine ears, and the Truth distilled into my heart, whence the affections of my devotion overflowed, and tears ran down, and happy was I therein. Not long had the Church of Milan begun to use this kind of consolation and exhortation, the brethren zealously joining with harmony of voice and hearts. For it was a year, or not much more, that Justina, mother to the Emperor Valentinian, a child, persecuted Thy servant Ambrose, in favour of her heresy, to which she was seduced by the Arians. The devout people kept watch in the Church, ready to die with their Bishop Thy servant. There my mother Thy handmaid, bearing a chief part of those anxieties and watchings, lived for prayer. We, yet unwarmed by the heat of Thy Spirit, still were stirred up by the sight of the amazed and disquieted city. Then it was first instituted that after the manner of the Eastern Churches, Hymns and Psalms should be sung, lest the people should wax faint through the tediousness of sorrow: and from that day to this the custom is retained, divers (yea, almost all) Thy congregations, throughout other parts of the world following herein. Then didst Thou by a vision discover to Thy forenamed Bishop where the bodies of Gervasius and Protasius the martyrs lay hid (whom Thou hadst in Thy secret treasury stored uncorrupted so many years), whence Thou mightest seasonably produce them to repress the fury of a woman, but an Empress. For when they were discovered and dug up, and with due honour translated to the Ambrosian Basilica, not only they who were vexed with unclean spirits (the devils confessing themselves) were cured, but a certain man who had for many years been blind, a citizen, and well known to the city, asking and hearing the reason of the people's confused joy, sprang forth desiring his guide to lead him thither. Led thither, he begged to be allowed to touch with his handkerchief the bier of Thy saints, whose death is precious in Thy sight. Which when he had done, and put to his eyes, they were forthwith opened. Thence did the fame spread, thence Thy praises glowed, shone; thence the mind of that enemy, though not turned to the soundness of believing, was yet turned back from her fury of persecuting. Thanks to Thee, O my God. Whence and whither hast Thou thus led my remembrance, that I should confess these things also unto Thee? which great though they be, I had passed by in forgetfulness. And yet then, when the odour of Thy ointments was so fragrant, did we not run after Thee. Therefore did I more weep among the singing of Thy Hymns, formerly sighing after Thee, and at length breathing in Thee, as far as the breath may enter into this our house of grass. Thou that makest men to dwell of one mind in one house, didst join with us Euodius also, a young man of our own city. Who being an officer of Court, was before us converted to Thee and baptised: and quitting his secular warfare, girded himself to Thine. We were together, about to dwell together in our devout purpose. We sought where we might serve Thee most usefully, and were together returning to Africa: whitherward being as far as Ostia, my mother departed this life. Much I omit, as hastening much. Receive my confessions and thanksgivings, O my God, for innumerable things whereof I am silent. But I will not omit whatsoever my soul would bring forth concerning that Thy handmaid, who brought me forth, both in the flesh, that I might be born to this temporal light, and in heart, that I might be born to Light eternal. Not her gifts, but Thine in her, would I speak of; for neither did she make nor educate herself. Thou createdst her; nor did her father and mother know what a one should come from them. And the sceptre of Thy Christ, the discipline of Thine only Son, in a Christian house, a good member of Thy Church, educated her in Thy fear. Yet for her good discipline was she wont to commend not so much her mother's diligence, as that of a certain decrepit maid-servant, who had carried her father when a child, as little ones used to be carried at the backs of elder girls. For which reason, and for her great age, and excellent conversation, was she, in that Christian family, well respected by its heads. Whence also the charge of her master's daughters was entrusted to her, to which she gave diligent heed, restraining them earnestly, when necessary, with a holy severity, and teaching them with a grave discretion. For, except at those hours wherein they were most temporately fed at their parents' table, she would not suffer them, though parched with thirst, to drink even water; preventing an evil custom, and adding this wholesome advice: "Ye drink water now, because you have not wine in your power; but when you come to be married, and be made mistresses of cellars and cupboards, you will scorn water, but the custom of drinking will abide." By this method of instruction, and the authority she had, she refrained the greediness of childhood, and moulded their very thirst to such an excellent moderation that what they should not, that they would not. And yet (as Thy handmaid told me her son) there had crept upon her a love of wine. For when (as the manner was) she, as though a sober maiden, was bidden by her parents to draw wine out of the hogshed, holding the vessel under the opening, before she poured the wine into the flagon, she sipped a little with the tip of her lips; for more her instinctive feelings refused. For this she did, not out of any desire of drink, but out of the exuberance of youth, whereby it boils over in mirthful freaks, which in youthful spirits are wont to be kept under by the gravity of their elders. And thus by adding to that little, daily littles (for whoso despiseth little things shall fall by little and little), she had fallen into such a habit as greedily to drink off her little cup brim-full almost of wine. Where was then that discreet old woman, and that her earnest countermanding? Would aught avail against a secret disease, if Thy healing hand, O Lord, watched not over us? Father, mother, and governors absent, Thou present, who createdst, who callest, who also by those set over us, workest something towards the salvation of our souls, what didst Thou then, O my God? how didst Thou cure her? how heal her? didst Thou not out of another soul bring forth a hard and a sharp taunt, like a lancet out of Thy secret store, and with one touch remove all that foul stuff? For a maid-servant with whom she used to go to the cellar, falling to words (as it happens) with her little mistress, when alone with her, taunted her with this fault, with most bitter insult, calling her wine-bibber. With which taunt she, stung to the quick, saw the foulness of her fault, and instantly condemned and forsook it. As flattering friends pervert, so reproachful enemies mostly correct. Yet not what by them Thou doest, but what themselves purposed, dost Thou repay them. For she in her anger sought to vex her young mistress, not to amend her; and did it in private, either for that the time and place of the quarrel so found them; or lest herself also should have anger, for discovering it thus late. But Thou, Lord, Governor of all in heaven and earth, who turnest to Thy purposes the deepest currents, and the ruled turbulence of the tide of times, didst by the very unhealthiness of one soul heal another; lest any, when he observes this, should ascribe it to his own power, even when another, whom he wished to be reformed, is reformed through words of his. Brought up thus modestly and soberly, and made subject rather by Thee to her parents, than by her parents to Thee, so soon as she was of marriageable age, being bestowed upon a husband, she served him as her lord; and did her diligence to win him unto Thee, preaching Thee unto him by her conversation; by which Thou ornamentedst her, making her reverently amiable, and admirable unto her husband. And she so endured the wronging of her bed as never to have any quarrel with her husband thereon. For she looked for Thy mercy upon him, that believing in Thee, he might be made chaste. But besides this, he was fervid, as in his affections, so in anger: but she had learnt not to resist an angry husband, not in deed only, but not even in word. Only when he was smoothed and tranquil, and in a temper to receive it, she would give an account of her actions, if haply he had overhastily taken offence. In a word, while many matrons, who had milder husbands, yet bore even in their faces marks of shame, would in familiar talk blame their husbands' lives, she would blame their tongues, giving them, as in jest, earnest advice: "That from the time they heard the marriage writings read to them, they should account them as indentures, whereby they were made servants; and so, remembering their condition, ought not to set themselves up against their lords." And when they, knowing what a choleric husband she endured, marvelled that it had never been heard, nor by any token perceived, that Patricius had beaten his wife, or that there had been any domestic difference between them, even for one day, and confidentially asking the reason, she taught them her practice above mentioned. Those wives who observed it found the good, and returned thanks; those who observed it not, found no relief, and suffered. Her mother-in-law also, at first by whisperings of evil servants incensed against her, she so overcame by observance and persevering endurance and meekness, that she of her own accord discovered to her son the meddling tongues whereby the domestic peace betwixt her and her daughter-in-law had been disturbed, asking him to correct them. Then, when in compliance with his mother, and for the well-ordering of the family, he had with stripes corrected those discovered, at her will who had discovered them, she promised the like reward to any who, to please her, should speak ill of her daughter-in-law to her: and none now venturing, they lived together with a remarkable sweetness of mutual kindness. This great gift also thou bestowedst, O my God, my mercy, upon that good handmaid of Thine, in whose womb Thou createdst me, that between any disagreeing and discordant parties where she was able, she showed herself such a peacemaker, that hearing on both sides most bitter things, such as swelling and indigested choler uses to break out into, when the crudities of enmities are breathed out in sour discourses to a present friend against an absent enemy, she never would disclose aught of the one unto the other, but what might tend to their reconcilement. A small good this might appear to me, did I not to my grief know numberless persons, who through some horrible and wide-spreading contagion of sin, not only disclose to persons mutually angered things said in anger, but add withal things never spoken, whereas to humane humanity, it ought to seem a light thing not to torment or increase ill will by ill words, unless one study withal by good words to quench it. Such was she, Thyself, her most inward Instructor, teaching her in the school of

adopted

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

words as it were fixed in our entrails: and the examples of Thy servants, whom for black Thou hadst made bright, and for dead, alive, being piled together in the receptacle of our thoughts, kindled and burned up that our heavy torpor, that we should not sink down to the abyss; and they fired us so vehemently, that all the blasts of subtle tongues from gainsayers might only inflame us the more fiercely, not extinguish us. Nevertheless, because for Thy Name's sake which Thou hast hallowed throughout the earth, this our vow and purpose might also find some to commend it, it seemed like ostentation not to wait for the vacation now so near, but to quit beforehand a public profession, which was before the eyes of all; so that all looking on this act of mine, and observing how near was the time of vintage which I wished to anticipate, would talk much of me, as if I had desired to appear some great one. And what end had it served me, that people should repute and dispute upon my purpose, and that our good should be evil spoken of. Moreover, it had at first troubled me that in this very summer my lungs began to give way, amid too great literary labour, and to breathe deeply with difficulty, and by the pain in my chest to show that they were injured, and to refuse any full or lengthened speaking; this had troubled me, for it almost constrained me of necessity to lay down that burden of teaching, or, if I could be cured and recover, at least to intermit it. But when the full wish for leisure, that I might see how that Thou art the Lord, arose, and was fixed, in me; my God, Thou knowest, I began even to rejoice that I had this secondary, and that no feigned, excuse, which might something moderate the offence taken by those who, for their sons' sake, wished me never to have the freedom of Thy sons. Full then of such joy, I endured till that interval of time were run; it may have been some twenty days, yet they were endured manfully; endured, for the covetousness which aforetime bore a part of this heavy business, had left me, and I remained alone, and had been overwhelmed, had not patience taken its place. Perchance, some of Thy servants, my brethren, may say that I sinned in this, that with a heart fully set on Thy service, I suffered myself to sit even one hour in the chair of lies. Nor would I be contentious. But hast not Thou, O most merciful Lord, pardoned and remitted this sin also, with my other most horrible and deadly sins, in the holy water? Verecundus was worn down with care about this our blessedness, for that being held back by bonds, whereby he was most straitly bound, he saw that he should be severed from us. For himself was not yet a Christian, his wife one of the faithful; and yet hereby, more rigidly than by any other chain, was he let and hindered from the journey which we had now essayed. For he would not, he said, be a Christian on any other terms than on those he could not. However, he offered us courteously to remain at his country-house so long as we should stay there. Thou, O Lord, shalt reward him in the resurrection of the just, seeing Thou hast already given him the lot of the righteous. For although, in our absence, being now at Rome, he was seized with bodily sickness, and therein being made a Christian, and one of the faithful, he departed this life; yet hadst Thou mercy not on him only, but on us also: lest remembering the exceeding kindness of our friend towards us, yet unable to number him among Thy flock, we should be agonised with intolerable sorrow. Thanks unto Thee, our God, we are Thine: Thy suggestions and consolations tell us, Faithful in promises, Thou now requitest Verecundus for his country-house of Cassiacum, where from the fever of the world we reposed in Thee, with the eternal freshness of Thy Paradise: for that Thou hast forgiven him his sins upon earth, in that rich mountain, that mountain which yieldeth milk, Thine own mountain. He then had at that time sorrow, but Nebridius joy. For although he also, not being yet a Christian, had fallen into the pit of that most pernicious error, believing the flesh of Thy Son to be a phantom: yet emerging thence, he believed as we did; not as yet endued with any Sacraments of Thy Church, but a most ardent searcher out of truth. Whom, not long after our conversion and regeneration by Thy Baptism, being also a faithful member of the Church Catholic, and serving Thee in perfect chastity and continence amongst his people in Africa, his whole house having through him first been made Christian, didst Thou release from the flesh; and now he lives in Abraham's bosom. Whatever that be, which is signified by that bosom, there lives my Nebridius, my sweet friend, and Thy child, O Lord, adopted of a freed man: there he liveth. For what other place is there for such a soul? There he liveth, whereof he asked much of me, a poor inexperienced man. Now lays he not his ear to my mouth, but his spiritual mouth unto Thy fountain, and drinketh as much as he can receive, wisdom in proportion to his thirst, endlessly happy. Nor do I think that he is so inebriated therewith, as to forget me; seeing Thou, Lord, Whom he drinketh, art mindful of us. So were we then, comforting Verecundus, who sorrowed, as far as friendship permitted, that our conversion was of such sort; and exhorting him to become faithful, according to his measure, namely, of a married estate; and awaiting Nebridius to follow us, which, being so near, he was all but doing: and so, lo! those days rolled by at length; for long and many they seemed, for the love I bare to the easeful liberty, that I might sing to Thee, from my inmost marrow, My heart hath said unto Thee, I have sought Thy face: Thy face, Lord, will I seek. Now was the day come wherein I was in deed to be freed of my Rhetoric Professorship, whereof in thought I was already freed. And it was done. Thou didst rescue my tongue, whence Thou hadst before rescued my heart. And I blessed Thee, rejoicing; retiring with all mine to the villa. What I there did in writing, which was now enlisted in Thy service, though still, in this breathing-time as it were, panting from the school of pride, my books may witness, as well what I debated with others, as what with myself alone, before Thee: what with Nebridius, who was absent, my Epistles bear witness. And when shall I have time to rehearse all Thy great benefits towards us at that time, especially when hasting on to yet greater mercies? For my remembrance recalls me, and pleasant is it to me, O Lord, to confess to Thee, by what inward goads Thou tamedst me; and how Thou hast evened me, lowering the mountains and hills of my high imaginations, straightening my crookedness, and smoothing my rough ways; and how Thou also subduedst the brother of my heart, Alypius, unto the name of Thy Only Begotten, our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, which he would not at first vouchsafe to have inserted in our writings. For rather would he have them savour of the lofty cedars of the Schools, which the Lord hath now broken down, than of the wholesome herbs of the Church, the antidote against serpents. Oh, in what accents spake I unto Thee, my God, when I read the Psalms of David, those faithful songs, and sounds of devotion, which allow of no swelling spirit, as yet a Catechumen, and a novice in Thy real love, resting in that villa, with Alypius a Catechumen, my mother cleaving to us, in female garb with masculine faith, with the tranquillity of age, motherly love, Christian piety! Oh, what accents did I utter unto Thee in those Psalms, and how was I by them kindled towards Thee, and on fire to rehearse them, if possible, through the whole world, against the pride of mankind! And yet they are sung through the whole world, nor can any hide himself from Thy heat. With what vehement and bitter sorrow was I angered at the Manichees! and again I pitied them, for they knew not those Sacraments, those medicines, and were mad against the antidote which might have recovered them of their madness. How I would they had then been somewhere near me, and without my knowing that they were there, could have beheld my countenance, and heard my words, when I read the fourth Psalm in that time of my rest, and how that Psalm wrought upon me: When I called, the God of my righteousness heard me; in tribulation Thou enlargedst me. Have mercy upon me, O Lord, and hear my prayer. Would that what I uttered on these words, they could hear, without my knowing whether they heard, lest they should think I spake it for their sakes! Because in truth neither should I speak the same things, nor in the same way, if I perceived that they heard and saw me; nor if I spake them would they so receive them, as when I spake by and for myself before Thee, out of the natural feelings of my soul. I trembled for fear, and again kindled with hope, and with rejoicing in Thy mercy, O Father; and all issued forth both by mine eyes and voice, when Thy good Spirit turning unto us, said, O ye sons of men, how long slow of heart? why do ye love vanity, and seek after leasing? For I had loved vanity, and sought after leasing. And Thou, O Lord, hadst already magnified Thy Holy One, raising Him from the dead, and setting Him at Thy right hand, whence from on high He should send His promise, the Comforter, the Spirit of truth. And He had already sent Him, but I knew it not; He had sent Him, because He was now magnified, rising again from the dead, and ascending into heaven. For till then, the Spirit was not yet given, because Jesus was not yet glorified. And the prophet cries out, How long, slow of heart? why do ye love vanity, and seek after leasing? Know this, that the Lord hath magnified His Holy One. He cries out, How long? He cries out, Know this: and I so long, not knowing, loved vanity, and sought after leasing: and therefore I heard and trembled, because it was spoken unto such as I remembered myself to have been. For in those phantoms which I had held for truths, was there vanity and leasing; and I spake aloud many things earnestly and forcibly, in the bitterness of my remembrance. Which would they had heard, who yet love vanity and seek after leasing! They would perchance have been troubled, and have vomited it up; and Thou wouldest hear them when they cried unto Thee; for by a true death in the flesh did He die for us, who now intercedeth unto Thee for us. I further read, Be angry, and sin not. And how was I moved, O my God, who had now learned to be angry at myself for things past, that I might not sin in time to come! Yea, to be justly angry; for that it was not another nature of a people of darkness which sinned for me, as they say who are not angry at themselves, and treasure up wrath against the day of wrath, and of the revelation of Thy just judgment. Nor were my good things now without, nor sought with the eyes of flesh in that earthly sun; for they that would have joy from without soon become vain, and waste themselves on the things seen and temporal, and in their famished thoughts do lick their very shadows. Oh that they were wearied out with their famine, and said, Who will show us good things? And we would say, and they hear, The light of Thy countenance is sealed upon us. For we are not that light which enlighteneth every man, but we are enlightened by Thee; that having been sometimes darkness, we may be light in Thee. Oh that they could see the eternal Internal, which having tasted, I was grieved that I could not show It them, so long as they brought me their heart in their eyes roving abroad from Thee, while they said, Who will show us good things? For there, where I was angry within myself in my chamber, where I was inwardly pricked, where I had sacrificed, slaying my old man and commencing the purpose of a new life, putting my trust in Thee,--there hadst Thou begun to grow sweet unto me, and hadst put gladness in my heart. And I cried out, as I read this outwardly, finding it inwardly. Nor would I be multiplied with worldly goods; wasting away time, and wasted by time; whereas I had in Thy eternal Simple Essence other corn, and wine, and oil. And with a loud cry of my heart I cried out in the next verse, O in peace, O for The Self-same! O what said he, I will lay me down and sleep, for who shall hinder us, when cometh to pass that saying which is written, Death is swallowed up in victory? And Thou surpassingly art the Self-same, Who art not changed; and in Thee is rest which forgetteth all toil, for there is none other with Thee, nor are we to seek those many other things, which are not what Thou art: but Thou, Lord, alone hast made me dwell in hope. I read, and kindled; nor found I what to do to those deaf and dead, of whom myself had been, a pestilent person, a bitter and a blind bawler against those writings, which are honied with the honey of heaven, and lightsome with Thine own light: and I was consumed with zeal at the enemies of this Scripture. When shall I recall all which passed in those holy-days? Yet neither have I forgotten, nor will I pass over the severity of Thy scourge, and the wonderful swiftness of Thy mercy. Thou didst then torment me with pain in my teeth; which when it had come to such height that I could not speak, it came into my heart to desire all my friends present to pray for me to Thee, the God of all manner of health. And this I wrote on wax, and gave it them to read. Presently so soon as with humble devotion we had bowed our knees, that pain went away. But what pain? or how went it away? I was affrighted, O my Lord, my God; for from infancy I had never experienced the like. And the power of Thy Nod was deeply conveyed to me, and rejoicing in faith, I praised Thy Name. And that faith suffered me not to be at ease about my past sins, which were not yet forgiven me by Thy baptism. The vintage-vacation ended, I gave notice to the Milanese to provide their scholars with another master to sell words to them; for that I had both made choice to serve Thee, and through my difficulty of breathing and pain in my chest was not equal to the Professorship. And by letters I signified to Thy Prelate, the holy man Ambrose, my former errors and present desires, begging his advice what of Thy Scriptures I had best read, to become readier and fitter for receiving so great grace. He recommended Isaiah the Prophet: I believe, because he above the rest is a more clear foreshower of the Gospel and of the calling of the Gentiles. But I, not understanding the first lesson in him, and imagining the whole to be like it, laid it by, to be resumed when better practised in our Lord's own words. Thence, when the time was come wherein I was to give in my name, we left the country and returned to Milan. It pleased Alypius also to be with me born again in Thee, being already clothed with the humility befitting Thy Sacraments; and a most valiant tamer of the body, so as, with unwonted venture, to wear the frozen ground of Italy with his bare feet. We joined with us the boy Adeodatus, born after the flesh, of my sin. Excellently hadst Thou made him. He was not quite fifteen, and in wit surpassed many grave and learned men. I confess unto Thee Thy gifts, O Lord my God, Creator of all, and abundantly able to reform our deformities: for I had no part in that boy, but the sin. For that we brought him up in Thy discipline, it was Thou, none else, had inspired us with it. I confess unto Thee Thy gifts. There is a book of ours entitled The Master; it is a dialogue between him and me. Thou knowest that all there ascribed to the person conversing with me were his ideas, in his sixteenth year. Much besides, and yet more admirable, I found in him. That talent struck awe into me. And who but Thou could be the workmaster of such wonders? Soon didst Thou take his life from the earth: and I now remember him without anxiety, fearing nothing for his childhood or youth, or his whole self. Him we joined with us, our contemporary in grace, to be brought up in Thy discipline: and we were baptised, and anxiety for our past life vanished from us. Nor was I sated in those days with the wondrous sweetness of considering the depth of Thy counsels concerning the salvation of mankind. How did I weep, in Thy Hymns and Canticles, touched to the quick by the voices of Thy sweet-attuned Church! The voices flowed into mine ears, and the Truth distilled into my heart, whence the affections of my devotion overflowed, and tears ran down, and happy was I therein. Not long had the Church of Milan begun to use this kind of consolation and exhortation, the brethren zealously joining with harmony of voice and hearts. For it was a year, or not much more, that Justina, mother to the Emperor Valentinian, a child, persecuted Thy servant Ambrose, in favour of her heresy, to which she was seduced by the Arians. The devout people kept watch in the Church, ready to die with their Bishop Thy servant. There my mother Thy handmaid, bearing a chief part of those anxieties and watchings, lived for prayer. We, yet unwarmed by the heat of Thy Spirit, still were stirred up by the sight of the amazed and disquieted city. Then it was first instituted that after the manner of the Eastern Churches, Hymns and Psalms should be sung, lest the people should wax faint through the tediousness of sorrow: and from that day to this the custom is retained, divers (yea, almost all) Thy congregations, throughout other parts of the world following herein. Then didst Thou by a vision discover to Thy forenamed Bishop where the bodies of Gervasius and Protasius the martyrs lay hid (whom Thou hadst in Thy secret treasury stored uncorrupted so many years), whence Thou mightest seasonably produce them to repress the fury of a woman, but an Empress. For when they were discovered and dug up, and with due honour translated to the Ambrosian Basilica, not only they who were vexed with unclean spirits (the devils confessing themselves) were cured, but a certain man who had for many years been blind, a citizen, and well known to the city, asking and hearing the reason of the people's confused joy, sprang forth desiring his guide to lead him thither. Led thither, he begged to be allowed to touch with his handkerchief the bier of Thy saints, whose death is precious in Thy sight. Which when he had done, and put to his eyes, they were forthwith opened. Thence did the fame spread, thence Thy praises glowed, shone; thence the mind of that enemy, though not turned to the soundness of believing, was yet turned back from her fury of persecuting. Thanks to Thee, O my God. Whence and whither hast Thou thus led my remembrance, that I should confess these things also unto Thee? which great though they be, I had passed by in forgetfulness. And yet then, when the odour of Thy ointments was so fragrant, did we not run after Thee. Therefore did I more weep among the singing of Thy Hymns, formerly sighing after Thee, and at length breathing in Thee, as far as the breath may enter into this our house of grass. Thou that makest men to dwell of one mind in one house, didst join with us Euodius also, a young man of our own city. Who being an officer of Court, was before us converted to Thee and baptised: and quitting his secular warfare, girded himself to Thine. We were together, about to dwell together in our devout purpose. We sought where we might serve Thee most usefully, and were together returning to Africa: whitherward being as far as Ostia, my mother departed this life. Much I omit, as hastening much. Receive my confessions and thanksgivings, O my God, for innumerable things whereof I am silent. But I will not omit whatsoever my soul would bring forth concerning that Thy handmaid, who brought me forth, both in the flesh, that I might be born to this temporal light, and in heart, that I might be born to Light eternal. Not her gifts, but Thine in her, would I speak of; for neither did she make nor educate herself. Thou createdst her; nor did her father and mother know what a one should come from them. And the sceptre of Thy Christ, the discipline of Thine only Son, in a Christian house, a good member of Thy Church, educated her in Thy fear. Yet for her good discipline was she wont to commend not so much her mother's diligence, as that of a certain decrepit maid-servant, who had carried her father when a child, as little ones used to be carried at the backs of elder girls. For which reason, and for her great age, and excellent conversation, was she, in that Christian family, well respected by its heads. Whence also the charge of her master's daughters was entrusted to her, to which she gave diligent heed, restraining them earnestly, when necessary, with a holy severity, and teaching them with a grave discretion. For, except at those hours wherein they were most temporately fed at their parents' table, she would not suffer them, though parched with thirst, to drink even water; preventing an evil custom, and adding this wholesome advice: "Ye drink water now, because you have not wine in your power; but when you come to be married, and be made mistresses of cellars and cupboards, you will scorn water, but the custom of drinking will abide." By this method of instruction, and the authority she had, she refrained the greediness of childhood, and moulded their very thirst to such an excellent moderation that what they should not, that they would not. And yet (as Thy handmaid told me her son) there had crept upon her a love of wine. For when (as the manner was) she, as though a sober maiden, was bidden by her parents to draw wine out of the hogshed, holding the vessel under the opening, before she poured the wine into the flagon, she sipped a little with the tip of her lips; for more her instinctive feelings refused. For this she did, not out of any desire of drink, but out of the exuberance of youth, whereby it boils over in mirthful freaks, which in youthful spirits are wont to be kept under by the gravity of their elders. And thus by adding to that little, daily littles (for whoso despiseth little things shall fall by little and little), she had fallen into such a habit as greedily to drink off her little cup brim-full almost of wine. Where was then that discreet old woman, and that her earnest countermanding? Would aught avail against a secret disease, if Thy healing hand, O Lord, watched not over us? Father, mother, and governors absent, Thou present, who createdst, who callest, who also by those set over us, workest something towards the salvation of our souls, what didst Thou then, O my God? how didst Thou cure her? how heal her? didst Thou not out of another soul bring forth a hard and a sharp taunt, like a lancet out of Thy secret store, and with one touch remove all that foul stuff? For a maid-servant with whom she used to go to the cellar, falling to words (as it happens) with her little mistress, when alone with her, taunted her with this fault, with most bitter insult, calling her wine-bibber. With which taunt she, stung to the quick, saw the foulness of her fault, and instantly condemned and forsook it. As flattering friends pervert, so reproachful enemies mostly correct. Yet not what by them Thou doest, but what themselves purposed, dost Thou repay them. For she in her anger sought to vex her young mistress, not to amend her; and did it in private, either for that the time and place of the quarrel so found them; or lest herself also should have anger, for discovering it thus late. But Thou, Lord, Governor of all in heaven and earth, who turnest to Thy purposes the deepest currents, and the ruled turbulence of the tide of times, didst by the very unhealthiness of one soul heal another; lest any, when he observes this, should ascribe it to his own power, even when another, whom he wished to be reformed, is reformed through words of his. Brought up thus modestly and soberly, and made subject rather by Thee to her parents, than by her parents to Thee, so soon as she was of marriageable age, being bestowed upon a husband, she served him as her lord; and did her diligence to win him unto Thee, preaching Thee unto him by her conversation; by which Thou ornamentedst her, making her reverently amiable, and admirable unto her husband. And she so endured the wronging of her bed as never to have any quarrel with her husband thereon. For she looked for Thy mercy upon him, that believing in Thee, he might be made chaste. But besides this, he was fervid, as in his affections, so in anger: but she had learnt not to resist an angry husband, not in deed only, but not even in word. Only when he was smoothed and tranquil, and in a temper to receive it, she would give an account of her actions, if haply he had overhastily taken offence. In a word, while many matrons, who had milder husbands, yet bore even in their faces marks of shame, would in familiar talk blame their husbands' lives, she would blame their tongues, giving them, as in jest, earnest advice: "That from the time they heard the marriage writings read to them, they should account them as indentures, whereby they were made servants; and so, remembering their condition, ought not to set themselves up against their lords." And when they, knowing what a choleric husband she endured, marvelled that it had never been heard, nor by any token perceived, that Patricius had beaten his wife, or that there had been any domestic difference between them, even for one day, and confidentially asking the reason, she taught them her practice above mentioned. Those wives who observed it found the good, and returned thanks; those who observed it not, found no relief, and suffered. Her mother-in-law also, at first by whisperings of evil servants incensed against her, she so overcame by observance and persevering endurance and meekness, that she of her own accord discovered to her son the meddling tongues whereby the domestic peace betwixt her and her daughter-in-law had been disturbed, asking him to correct them. Then, when in compliance with his mother, and for the well-ordering of the family, he had with stripes corrected those discovered, at her will who had discovered them, she promised the like reward to any who, to please her, should speak ill of her daughter-in-law to her: and none now venturing, they lived together with a remarkable sweetness of mutual kindness. This great gift also thou bestowedst, O my God, my mercy, upon that good handmaid of Thine, in whose womb Thou createdst me, that between any disagreeing and discordant parties where she was able, she showed herself such a peacemaker, that hearing on both sides most bitter things, such as swelling and indigested choler uses to break out into, when the crudities of enmities are breathed out in sour discourses to a present friend against an absent enemy, she never would disclose aught of the one unto the other, but what might tend to their reconcilement. A small good this might appear to me, did I not to my grief know numberless persons, who through some horrible and wide-spreading contagion of sin, not only disclose to persons mutually angered things said in anger, but add withal things never spoken, whereas to humane humanity, it ought to seem a light thing not to torment or increase ill will by ill words, unless one study withal by good words to quench it. Such was she, Thyself, her most inward Instructor, teaching her in the school of

some

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

words as it were fixed in our entrails: and the examples of Thy servants, whom for black Thou hadst made bright, and for dead, alive, being piled together in the receptacle of our thoughts, kindled and burned up that our heavy torpor, that we should not sink down to the abyss; and they fired us so vehemently, that all the blasts of subtle tongues from gainsayers might only inflame us the more fiercely, not extinguish us. Nevertheless, because for Thy Name's sake which Thou hast hallowed throughout the earth, this our vow and purpose might also find some to commend it, it seemed like ostentation not to wait for the vacation now so near, but to quit beforehand a public profession, which was before the eyes of all; so that all looking on this act of mine, and observing how near was the time of vintage which I wished to anticipate, would talk much of me, as if I had desired to appear some great one. And what end had it served me, that people should repute and dispute upon my purpose, and that our good should be evil spoken of. Moreover, it had at first troubled me that in this very summer my lungs began to give way, amid too great literary labour, and to breathe deeply with difficulty, and by the pain in my chest to show that they were injured, and to refuse any full or lengthened speaking; this had troubled me, for it almost constrained me of necessity to lay down that burden of teaching, or, if I could be cured and recover, at least to intermit it. But when the full wish for leisure, that I might see how that Thou art the Lord, arose, and was fixed, in me; my God, Thou knowest, I began even to rejoice that I had this secondary, and that no feigned, excuse, which might something moderate the offence taken by those who, for their sons' sake, wished me never to have the freedom of Thy sons. Full then of such joy, I endured till that interval of time were run; it may have been some twenty days, yet they were endured manfully; endured, for the covetousness which aforetime bore a part of this heavy business, had left me, and I remained alone, and had been overwhelmed, had not patience taken its place. Perchance, some of Thy servants, my brethren, may say that I sinned in this, that with a heart fully set on Thy service, I suffered myself to sit even one hour in the chair of lies. Nor would I be contentious. But hast not Thou, O most merciful Lord, pardoned and remitted this sin also, with my other most horrible and deadly sins, in the holy water? Verecundus was worn down with care about this our blessedness, for that being held back by bonds, whereby he was most straitly bound, he saw that he should be severed from us. For himself was not yet a Christian, his wife one of the faithful; and yet hereby, more rigidly than by any other chain, was he let and hindered from the journey which we had now essayed. For he would not, he said, be a Christian on any other terms than on those he could not. However, he offered us courteously to remain at his country-house so long as we should stay there. Thou, O Lord, shalt reward him in the resurrection of the just, seeing Thou hast already given him the lot of the righteous. For although, in our absence, being now at Rome, he was seized with bodily sickness, and therein being made a Christian, and one of the faithful, he departed this life; yet hadst Thou mercy not on him only, but on us also: lest remembering the exceeding kindness of our friend towards us, yet unable to number him among Thy flock, we should be agonised with intolerable sorrow. Thanks unto Thee, our God, we are Thine: Thy suggestions and consolations tell us, Faithful in promises, Thou now requitest Verecundus for his country-house of Cassiacum, where from the fever of the world we reposed in Thee, with the eternal freshness of Thy Paradise: for that Thou hast forgiven him his sins upon earth, in that rich mountain, that mountain which yieldeth milk, Thine own mountain. He then had at that time sorrow, but Nebridius joy. For although he also, not being yet a Christian, had fallen into the pit of that most pernicious error, believing the flesh of Thy Son to be a phantom: yet emerging thence, he believed as we did; not as yet endued with any Sacraments of Thy Church, but a most ardent searcher out of truth. Whom, not long after our conversion and regeneration by Thy Baptism, being also a faithful member of the Church Catholic, and serving Thee in perfect chastity and continence amongst his people in Africa, his whole house having through him first been made Christian, didst Thou release from the flesh; and now he lives in Abraham's bosom. Whatever that be, which is signified by that bosom, there lives my Nebridius, my sweet friend, and Thy child, O Lord, adopted of a freed man: there he liveth. For what other place is there for such a soul? There he liveth, whereof he asked much of me, a poor inexperienced man. Now lays he not his ear to my mouth, but his spiritual mouth unto Thy fountain, and drinketh as much as he can receive, wisdom in proportion to his thirst, endlessly happy. Nor do I think that he is so inebriated therewith, as to forget me; seeing Thou, Lord, Whom he drinketh, art mindful of us. So were we then, comforting Verecundus, who sorrowed, as far as friendship permitted, that our conversion was of such sort; and exhorting him to become faithful, according to his measure, namely, of a married estate; and awaiting Nebridius to follow us, which, being so near, he was all but doing: and so, lo! those days rolled by at length; for long and many they seemed, for the love I bare to the easeful liberty, that I might sing to Thee, from my inmost marrow, My heart hath said unto Thee, I have sought Thy face: Thy face, Lord, will I seek. Now was the day come wherein I was in deed to be freed of my Rhetoric Professorship, whereof in thought I was already freed. And it was done. Thou didst rescue my tongue, whence Thou hadst before rescued my heart. And I blessed Thee, rejoicing; retiring with all mine to the villa. What I there did in writing, which was now enlisted in Thy service, though still, in this breathing-time as it were, panting from the school of pride, my books may witness, as well what I debated with others, as what with myself alone, before Thee: what with Nebridius, who was absent, my Epistles bear witness. And when shall I have time to rehearse all Thy great benefits towards us at that time, especially when hasting on to yet greater mercies? For my remembrance recalls me, and pleasant is it to me, O Lord, to confess to Thee, by what inward goads Thou tamedst me; and how Thou hast evened me, lowering the mountains and hills of my high imaginations, straightening my crookedness, and smoothing my rough ways; and how Thou also subduedst the brother of my heart, Alypius, unto the name of Thy Only Begotten, our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, which he would not at first vouchsafe to have inserted in our writings. For rather would he have them savour of the lofty cedars of the Schools, which the Lord hath now broken down, than of the wholesome herbs of the Church, the antidote against serpents. Oh, in what accents spake I unto Thee, my God, when I read the Psalms of David, those faithful songs, and sounds of devotion, which allow of no swelling spirit, as yet a Catechumen, and a novice in Thy real love, resting in that villa, with Alypius a Catechumen, my mother cleaving to us, in female garb with masculine faith, with the tranquillity of age, motherly love, Christian piety! Oh, what accents did I utter unto Thee in those Psalms, and how was I by them kindled towards Thee, and on fire to rehearse them, if possible, through the whole world, against the pride of mankind! And yet they are sung through the whole world, nor can any hide himself from Thy heat. With what vehement and bitter sorrow was I angered at the Manichees! and again I pitied them, for they knew not those Sacraments, those medicines, and were mad against the antidote which might have recovered them of their madness. How I would they had then been somewhere near me, and without my knowing that they were there, could have beheld my countenance, and heard my words, when I read the fourth Psalm in that time of my rest, and how that Psalm wrought upon me: When I called, the God of my righteousness heard me; in tribulation Thou enlargedst me. Have mercy upon me, O Lord, and hear my prayer. Would that what I uttered on these words, they could hear, without my knowing whether they heard, lest they should think I spake it for their sakes! Because in truth neither should I speak the same things, nor in the same way, if I perceived that they heard and saw me; nor if I spake them would they so receive them, as when I spake by and for myself before Thee, out of the natural feelings of my soul. I trembled for fear, and again kindled with hope, and with rejoicing in Thy mercy, O Father; and all issued forth both by mine eyes and voice, when Thy good Spirit turning unto us, said, O ye sons of men, how long slow of heart? why do ye love vanity, and seek after leasing? For I had loved vanity, and sought after leasing. And Thou, O Lord, hadst already magnified Thy Holy One, raising Him from the dead, and setting Him at Thy right hand, whence from on high He should send His promise, the Comforter, the Spirit of truth. And He had already sent Him, but I knew it not; He had sent Him, because He was now magnified, rising again from the dead, and ascending into heaven. For till then, the Spirit was not yet given, because Jesus was not yet glorified. And the prophet cries out, How long, slow of heart? why do ye love vanity, and seek after leasing? Know this, that the Lord hath magnified His Holy One. He cries out, How long? He cries out, Know this: and I so long, not knowing, loved vanity, and sought after leasing: and therefore I heard and trembled, because it was spoken unto such as I remembered myself to have been. For in those phantoms which I had held for truths, was there vanity and leasing; and I spake aloud many things earnestly and forcibly, in the bitterness of my remembrance. Which would they had heard, who yet love vanity and seek after leasing! They would perchance have been troubled, and have vomited it up; and Thou wouldest hear them when they cried unto Thee; for by a true death in the flesh did He die for us, who now intercedeth unto Thee for us. I further read, Be angry, and sin not. And how was I moved, O my God, who had now learned to be angry at myself for things past, that I might not sin in time to come! Yea, to be justly angry; for that it was not another nature of a people of darkness which sinned for me, as they say who are not angry at themselves, and treasure up wrath against the day of wrath, and of the revelation of Thy just judgment. Nor were my good things now without, nor sought with the eyes of flesh in that earthly sun; for they that would have joy from without soon become vain, and waste themselves on the things seen and temporal, and in their famished thoughts do lick their very shadows. Oh that they were wearied out with their famine, and said, Who will show us good things? And we would say, and they hear, The light of Thy countenance is sealed upon us. For we are not that light which enlighteneth every man, but we are enlightened by Thee; that having been sometimes darkness, we may be light in Thee. Oh that they could see the eternal Internal, which having tasted, I was grieved that I could not show It them, so long as they brought me their heart in their eyes roving abroad from Thee, while they said, Who will show us good things? For there, where I was angry within myself in my chamber, where I was inwardly pricked, where I had sacrificed, slaying my old man and commencing the purpose of a new life, putting my trust in Thee,--there hadst Thou begun to grow sweet unto me, and hadst put gladness in my heart. And I cried out, as I read this outwardly, finding it inwardly. Nor would I be multiplied with worldly goods; wasting away time, and wasted by time; whereas I had in Thy eternal Simple Essence other corn, and wine, and oil. And with a loud cry of my heart I cried out in the next verse, O in peace, O for The Self-same! O what said he, I will lay me down and sleep, for who shall hinder us, when cometh to pass that saying which is written, Death is swallowed up in victory? And Thou surpassingly art the Self-same, Who art not changed; and in Thee is rest which forgetteth all toil, for there is none other with Thee, nor are we to seek those many other things, which are not what Thou art: but Thou, Lord, alone hast made me dwell in hope. I read, and kindled; nor found I what to do to those deaf and dead, of whom myself had been, a pestilent person, a bitter and a blind bawler against those writings, which are honied with the honey of heaven, and lightsome with Thine own light: and I was consumed with zeal at the enemies of this Scripture. When shall I recall all which passed in those holy-days? Yet neither have I forgotten, nor will I pass over the severity of Thy scourge, and the wonderful swiftness of Thy mercy. Thou didst then torment me with pain in my teeth; which when it had come to such height that I could not speak, it came into my heart to desire all my friends present to pray for me to Thee, the God of all manner of health. And this I wrote on wax, and gave it them to read. Presently so soon as with humble devotion we had bowed our knees, that pain went away. But what pain? or how went it away? I was affrighted, O my Lord, my God; for from infancy I had never experienced the like. And the power of Thy Nod was deeply conveyed to me, and rejoicing in faith, I praised Thy Name. And that faith suffered me not to be at ease about my past sins, which were not yet forgiven me by Thy baptism. The vintage-vacation ended, I gave notice to the Milanese to provide their scholars with another master to sell words to them; for that I had both made choice to serve Thee, and through my difficulty of breathing and pain in my chest was not equal to the Professorship. And by letters I signified to Thy Prelate, the holy man Ambrose, my former errors and present desires, begging his advice what of Thy Scriptures I had best read, to become readier and fitter for receiving so great grace. He recommended Isaiah the Prophet: I believe, because he above the rest is a more clear foreshower of the Gospel and of the calling of the Gentiles. But I, not understanding the first lesson in him, and imagining the whole to be like it, laid it by, to be resumed when better practised in our Lord's own words. Thence, when the time was come wherein I was to give in my name, we left the country and returned to Milan. It pleased Alypius also to be with me born again in Thee, being already clothed with the humility befitting Thy Sacraments; and a most valiant tamer of the body, so as, with unwonted venture, to wear the frozen ground of Italy with his bare feet. We joined with us the boy Adeodatus, born after the flesh, of my sin. Excellently hadst Thou made him. He was not quite fifteen, and in wit surpassed many grave and learned men. I confess unto Thee Thy gifts, O Lord my God, Creator of all, and abundantly able to reform our deformities: for I had no part in that boy, but the sin. For that we brought him up in Thy discipline, it was Thou, none else, had inspired us with it. I confess unto Thee Thy gifts. There is a book of ours entitled The Master; it is a dialogue between him and me. Thou knowest that all there ascribed to the person conversing with me were his ideas, in his sixteenth year. Much besides, and yet more admirable, I found in him. That talent struck awe into me. And who but Thou could be the workmaster of such wonders? Soon didst Thou take his life from the earth: and I now remember him without anxiety, fearing nothing for his childhood or youth, or his whole self. Him we joined with us, our contemporary in grace, to be brought up in Thy discipline: and we were baptised, and anxiety for our past life vanished from us. Nor was I sated in those days with the wondrous sweetness of considering the depth of Thy counsels concerning the salvation of mankind. How did I weep, in Thy Hymns and Canticles, touched to the quick by the voices of Thy sweet-attuned Church! The voices flowed into mine ears, and the Truth distilled into my heart, whence the affections of my devotion overflowed, and tears ran down, and happy was I therein. Not long had the Church of Milan begun to use this kind of consolation and exhortation, the brethren zealously joining with harmony of voice and hearts. For it was a year, or not much more, that Justina, mother to the Emperor Valentinian, a child, persecuted Thy servant Ambrose, in favour of her heresy, to which she was seduced by the Arians. The devout people kept watch in the Church, ready to die with their Bishop Thy servant. There my mother Thy handmaid, bearing a chief part of those anxieties and watchings, lived for prayer. We, yet unwarmed by the heat of Thy Spirit, still were stirred up by the sight of the amazed and disquieted city. Then it was first instituted that after the manner of the Eastern Churches, Hymns and Psalms should be sung, lest the people should wax faint through the tediousness of sorrow: and from that day to this the custom is retained, divers (yea, almost all) Thy congregations, throughout other parts of the world following herein. Then didst Thou by a vision discover to Thy forenamed Bishop where the bodies of Gervasius and Protasius the martyrs lay hid (whom Thou hadst in Thy secret treasury stored uncorrupted so many years), whence Thou mightest seasonably produce them to repress the fury of a woman, but an Empress. For when they were discovered and dug up, and with due honour translated to the Ambrosian Basilica, not only they who were vexed with unclean spirits (the devils confessing themselves) were cured, but a certain man who had for many years been blind, a citizen, and well known to the city, asking and hearing the reason of the people's confused joy, sprang forth desiring his guide to lead him thither. Led thither, he begged to be allowed to touch with his handkerchief the bier of Thy saints, whose death is precious in Thy sight. Which when he had done, and put to his eyes, they were forthwith opened. Thence did the fame spread, thence Thy praises glowed, shone; thence the mind of that enemy, though not turned to the soundness of believing, was yet turned back from her fury of persecuting. Thanks to Thee, O my God. Whence and whither hast Thou thus led my remembrance, that I should confess these things also unto Thee? which great though they be, I had passed by in forgetfulness. And yet then, when the odour of Thy ointments was so fragrant, did we not run after Thee. Therefore did I more weep among the singing of Thy Hymns, formerly sighing after Thee, and at length breathing in Thee, as far as the breath may enter into this our house of grass. Thou that makest men to dwell of one mind in one house, didst join with us Euodius also, a young man of our own city. Who being an officer of Court, was before us converted to Thee and baptised: and quitting his secular warfare, girded himself to Thine. We were together, about to dwell together in our devout purpose. We sought where we might serve Thee most usefully, and were together returning to Africa: whitherward being as far as Ostia, my mother departed this life. Much I omit, as hastening much. Receive my confessions and thanksgivings, O my God, for innumerable things whereof I am silent. But I will not omit whatsoever my soul would bring forth concerning that Thy handmaid, who brought me forth, both in the flesh, that I might be born to this temporal light, and in heart, that I might be born to Light eternal. Not her gifts, but Thine in her, would I speak of; for neither did she make nor educate herself. Thou createdst her; nor did her father and mother know what a one should come from them. And the sceptre of Thy Christ, the discipline of Thine only Son, in a Christian house, a good member of Thy Church, educated her in Thy fear. Yet for her good discipline was she wont to commend not so much her mother's diligence, as that of a certain decrepit maid-servant, who had carried her father when a child, as little ones used to be carried at the backs of elder girls. For which reason, and for her great age, and excellent conversation, was she, in that Christian family, well respected by its heads. Whence also the charge of her master's daughters was entrusted to her, to which she gave diligent heed, restraining them earnestly, when necessary, with a holy severity, and teaching them with a grave discretion. For, except at those hours wherein they were most temporately fed at their parents' table, she would not suffer them, though parched with thirst, to drink even water; preventing an evil custom, and adding this wholesome advice: "Ye drink water now, because you have not wine in your power; but when you come to be married, and be made mistresses of cellars and cupboards, you will scorn water, but the custom of drinking will abide." By this method of instruction, and the authority she had, she refrained the greediness of childhood, and moulded their very thirst to such an excellent moderation that what they should not, that they would not. And yet (as Thy handmaid told me her son) there had crept upon her a love of wine. For when (as the manner was) she, as though a sober maiden, was bidden by her parents to draw wine out of the hogshed, holding the vessel under the opening, before she poured the wine into the flagon, she sipped a little with the tip of her lips; for more her instinctive feelings refused. For this she did, not out of any desire of drink, but out of the exuberance of youth, whereby it boils over in mirthful freaks, which in youthful spirits are wont to be kept under by the gravity of their elders. And thus by adding to that little, daily littles (for whoso despiseth little things shall fall by little and little), she had fallen into such a habit as greedily to drink off her little cup brim-full almost of wine. Where was then that discreet old woman, and that her earnest countermanding? Would aught avail against a secret disease, if Thy healing hand, O Lord, watched not over us? Father, mother, and governors absent, Thou present, who createdst, who callest, who also by those set over us, workest something towards the salvation of our souls, what didst Thou then, O my God? how didst Thou cure her? how heal her? didst Thou not out of another soul bring forth a hard and a sharp taunt, like a lancet out of Thy secret store, and with one touch remove all that foul stuff? For a maid-servant with whom she used to go to the cellar, falling to words (as it happens) with her little mistress, when alone with her, taunted her with this fault, with most bitter insult, calling her wine-bibber. With which taunt she, stung to the quick, saw the foulness of her fault, and instantly condemned and forsook it. As flattering friends pervert, so reproachful enemies mostly correct. Yet not what by them Thou doest, but what themselves purposed, dost Thou repay them. For she in her anger sought to vex her young mistress, not to amend her; and did it in private, either for that the time and place of the quarrel so found them; or lest herself also should have anger, for discovering it thus late. But Thou, Lord, Governor of all in heaven and earth, who turnest to Thy purposes the deepest currents, and the ruled turbulence of the tide of times, didst by the very unhealthiness of one soul heal another; lest any, when he observes this, should ascribe it to his own power, even when another, whom he wished to be reformed, is reformed through words of his. Brought up thus modestly and soberly, and made subject rather by Thee to her parents, than by her parents to Thee, so soon as she was of marriageable age, being bestowed upon a husband, she served him as her lord; and did her diligence to win him unto Thee, preaching Thee unto him by her conversation; by which Thou ornamentedst her, making her reverently amiable, and admirable unto her husband. And she so endured the wronging of her bed as never to have any quarrel with her husband thereon. For she looked for Thy mercy upon him, that believing in Thee, he might be made chaste. But besides this, he was fervid, as in his affections, so in anger: but she had learnt not to resist an angry husband, not in deed only, but not even in word. Only when he was smoothed and tranquil, and in a temper to receive it, she would give an account of her actions, if haply he had overhastily taken offence. In a word, while many matrons, who had milder husbands, yet bore even in their faces marks of shame, would in familiar talk blame their husbands' lives, she would blame their tongues, giving them, as in jest, earnest advice: "That from the time they heard the marriage writings read to them, they should account them as indentures, whereby they were made servants; and so, remembering their condition, ought not to set themselves up against their lords." And when they, knowing what a choleric husband she endured, marvelled that it had never been heard, nor by any token perceived, that Patricius had beaten his wife, or that there had been any domestic difference between them, even for one day, and confidentially asking the reason, she taught them her practice above mentioned. Those wives who observed it found the good, and returned thanks; those who observed it not, found no relief, and suffered. Her mother-in-law also, at first by whisperings of evil servants incensed against her, she so overcame by observance and persevering endurance and meekness, that she of her own accord discovered to her son the meddling tongues whereby the domestic peace betwixt her and her daughter-in-law had been disturbed, asking him to correct them. Then, when in compliance with his mother, and for the well-ordering of the family, he had with stripes corrected those discovered, at her will who had discovered them, she promised the like reward to any who, to please her, should speak ill of her daughter-in-law to her: and none now venturing, they lived together with a remarkable sweetness of mutual kindness. This great gift also thou bestowedst, O my God, my mercy, upon that good handmaid of Thine, in whose womb Thou createdst me, that between any disagreeing and discordant parties where she was able, she showed herself such a peacemaker, that hearing on both sides most bitter things, such as swelling and indigested choler uses to break out into, when the crudities of enmities are breathed out in sour discourses to a present friend against an absent enemy, she never would disclose aught of the one unto the other, but what might tend to their reconcilement. A small good this might appear to me, did I not to my grief know numberless persons, who through some horrible and wide-spreading contagion of sin, not only disclose to persons mutually angered things said in anger, but add withal things never spoken, whereas to humane humanity, it ought to seem a light thing not to torment or increase ill will by ill words, unless one study withal by good words to quench it. Such was she, Thyself, her most inward Instructor, teaching her in the school of

whet

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

words as it were fixed in our entrails: and the examples of Thy servants, whom for black Thou hadst made bright, and for dead, alive, being piled together in the receptacle of our thoughts, kindled and burned up that our heavy torpor, that we should not sink down to the abyss; and they fired us so vehemently, that all the blasts of subtle tongues from gainsayers might only inflame us the more fiercely, not extinguish us. Nevertheless, because for Thy Name's sake which Thou hast hallowed throughout the earth, this our vow and purpose might also find some to commend it, it seemed like ostentation not to wait for the vacation now so near, but to quit beforehand a public profession, which was before the eyes of all; so that all looking on this act of mine, and observing how near was the time of vintage which I wished to anticipate, would talk much of me, as if I had desired to appear some great one. And what end had it served me, that people should repute and dispute upon my purpose, and that our good should be evil spoken of. Moreover, it had at first troubled me that in this very summer my lungs began to give way, amid too great literary labour, and to breathe deeply with difficulty, and by the pain in my chest to show that they were injured, and to refuse any full or lengthened speaking; this had troubled me, for it almost constrained me of necessity to lay down that burden of teaching, or, if I could be cured and recover, at least to intermit it. But when the full wish for leisure, that I might see how that Thou art the Lord, arose, and was fixed, in me; my God, Thou knowest, I began even to rejoice that I had this secondary, and that no feigned, excuse, which might something moderate the offence taken by those who, for their sons' sake, wished me never to have the freedom of Thy sons. Full then of such joy, I endured till that interval of time were run; it may have been some twenty days, yet they were endured manfully; endured, for the covetousness which aforetime bore a part of this heavy business, had left me, and I remained alone, and had been overwhelmed, had not patience taken its place. Perchance, some of Thy servants, my brethren, may say that I sinned in this, that with a heart fully set on Thy service, I suffered myself to sit even one hour in the chair of lies. Nor would I be contentious. But hast not Thou, O most merciful Lord, pardoned and remitted this sin also, with my other most horrible and deadly sins, in the holy water? Verecundus was worn down with care about this our blessedness, for that being held back by bonds, whereby he was most straitly bound, he saw that he should be severed from us. For himself was not yet a Christian, his wife one of the faithful; and yet hereby, more rigidly than by any other chain, was he let and hindered from the journey which we had now essayed. For he would not, he said, be a Christian on any other terms than on those he could not. However, he offered us courteously to remain at his country-house so long as we should stay there. Thou, O Lord, shalt reward him in the resurrection of the just, seeing Thou hast already given him the lot of the righteous. For although, in our absence, being now at Rome, he was seized with bodily sickness, and therein being made a Christian, and one of the faithful, he departed this life; yet hadst Thou mercy not on him only, but on us also: lest remembering the exceeding kindness of our friend towards us, yet unable to number him among Thy flock, we should be agonised with intolerable sorrow. Thanks unto Thee, our God, we are Thine: Thy suggestions and consolations tell us, Faithful in promises, Thou now requitest Verecundus for his country-house of Cassiacum, where from the fever of the world we reposed in Thee, with the eternal freshness of Thy Paradise: for that Thou hast forgiven him his sins upon earth, in that rich mountain, that mountain which yieldeth milk, Thine own mountain. He then had at that time sorrow, but Nebridius joy. For although he also, not being yet a Christian, had fallen into the pit of that most pernicious error, believing the flesh of Thy Son to be a phantom: yet emerging thence, he believed as we did; not as yet endued with any Sacraments of Thy Church, but a most ardent searcher out of truth. Whom, not long after our conversion and regeneration by Thy Baptism, being also a faithful member of the Church Catholic, and serving Thee in perfect chastity and continence amongst his people in Africa, his whole house having through him first been made Christian, didst Thou release from the flesh; and now he lives in Abraham's bosom. Whatever that be, which is signified by that bosom, there lives my Nebridius, my sweet friend, and Thy child, O Lord, adopted of a freed man: there he liveth. For what other place is there for such a soul? There he liveth, whereof he asked much of me, a poor inexperienced man. Now lays he not his ear to my mouth, but his spiritual mouth unto Thy fountain, and drinketh as much as he can receive, wisdom in proportion to his thirst, endlessly happy. Nor do I think that he is so inebriated therewith, as to forget me; seeing Thou, Lord, Whom he drinketh, art mindful of us. So were we then, comforting Verecundus, who sorrowed, as far as friendship permitted, that our conversion was of such sort; and exhorting him to become faithful, according to his measure, namely, of a married estate; and awaiting Nebridius to follow us, which, being so near, he was all but doing: and so, lo! those days rolled by at length; for long and many they seemed, for the love I bare to the easeful liberty, that I might sing to Thee, from my inmost marrow, My heart hath said unto Thee, I have sought Thy face: Thy face, Lord, will I seek. Now was the day come wherein I was in deed to be freed of my Rhetoric Professorship, whereof in thought I was already freed. And it was done. Thou didst rescue my tongue, whence Thou hadst before rescued my heart. And I blessed Thee, rejoicing; retiring with all mine to the villa. What I there did in writing, which was now enlisted in Thy service, though still, in this breathing-time as it were, panting from the school of pride, my books may witness, as well what I debated with others, as what with myself alone, before Thee: what with Nebridius, who was absent, my Epistles bear witness. And when shall I have time to rehearse all Thy great benefits towards us at that time, especially when hasting on to yet greater mercies? For my remembrance recalls me, and pleasant is it to me, O Lord, to confess to Thee, by what inward goads Thou tamedst me; and how Thou hast evened me, lowering the mountains and hills of my high imaginations, straightening my crookedness, and smoothing my rough ways; and how Thou also subduedst the brother of my heart, Alypius, unto the name of Thy Only Begotten, our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, which he would not at first vouchsafe to have inserted in our writings. For rather would he have them savour of the lofty cedars of the Schools, which the Lord hath now broken down, than of the wholesome herbs of the Church, the antidote against serpents. Oh, in what accents spake I unto Thee, my God, when I read the Psalms of David, those faithful songs, and sounds of devotion, which allow of no swelling spirit, as yet a Catechumen, and a novice in Thy real love, resting in that villa, with Alypius a Catechumen, my mother cleaving to us, in female garb with masculine faith, with the tranquillity of age, motherly love, Christian piety! Oh, what accents did I utter unto Thee in those Psalms, and how was I by them kindled towards Thee, and on fire to rehearse them, if possible, through the whole world, against the pride of mankind! And yet they are sung through the whole world, nor can any hide himself from Thy heat. With what vehement and bitter sorrow was I angered at the Manichees! and again I pitied them, for they knew not those Sacraments, those medicines, and were mad against the antidote which might have recovered them of their madness. How I would they had then been somewhere near me, and without my knowing that they were there, could have beheld my countenance, and heard my words, when I read the fourth Psalm in that time of my rest, and how that Psalm wrought upon me: When I called, the God of my righteousness heard me; in tribulation Thou enlargedst me. Have mercy upon me, O Lord, and hear my prayer. Would that what I uttered on these words, they could hear, without my knowing whether they heard, lest they should think I spake it for their sakes! Because in truth neither should I speak the same things, nor in the same way, if I perceived that they heard and saw me; nor if I spake them would they so receive them, as when I spake by and for myself before Thee, out of the natural feelings of my soul. I trembled for fear, and again kindled with hope, and with rejoicing in Thy mercy, O Father; and all issued forth both by mine eyes and voice, when Thy good Spirit turning unto us, said, O ye sons of men, how long slow of heart? why do ye love vanity, and seek after leasing? For I had loved vanity, and sought after leasing. And Thou, O Lord, hadst already magnified Thy Holy One, raising Him from the dead, and setting Him at Thy right hand, whence from on high He should send His promise, the Comforter, the Spirit of truth. And He had already sent Him, but I knew it not; He had sent Him, because He was now magnified, rising again from the dead, and ascending into heaven. For till then, the Spirit was not yet given, because Jesus was not yet glorified. And the prophet cries out, How long, slow of heart? why do ye love vanity, and seek after leasing? Know this, that the Lord hath magnified His Holy One. He cries out, How long? He cries out, Know this: and I so long, not knowing, loved vanity, and sought after leasing: and therefore I heard and trembled, because it was spoken unto such as I remembered myself to have been. For in those phantoms which I had held for truths, was there vanity and leasing; and I spake aloud many things earnestly and forcibly, in the bitterness of my remembrance. Which would they had heard, who yet love vanity and seek after leasing! They would perchance have been troubled, and have vomited it up; and Thou wouldest hear them when they cried unto Thee; for by a true death in the flesh did He die for us, who now intercedeth unto Thee for us. I further read, Be angry, and sin not. And how was I moved, O my God, who had now learned to be angry at myself for things past, that I might not sin in time to come! Yea, to be justly angry; for that it was not another nature of a people of darkness which sinned for me, as they say who are not angry at themselves, and treasure up wrath against the day of wrath, and of the revelation of Thy just judgment. Nor were my good things now without, nor sought with the eyes of flesh in that earthly sun; for they that would have joy from without soon become vain, and waste themselves on the things seen and temporal, and in their famished thoughts do lick their very shadows. Oh that they were wearied out with their famine, and said, Who will show us good things? And we would say, and they hear, The light of Thy countenance is sealed upon us. For we are not that light which enlighteneth every man, but we are enlightened by Thee; that having been sometimes darkness, we may be light in Thee. Oh that they could see the eternal Internal, which having tasted, I was grieved that I could not show It them, so long as they brought me their heart in their eyes roving abroad from Thee, while they said, Who will show us good things? For there, where I was angry within myself in my chamber, where I was inwardly pricked, where I had sacrificed, slaying my old man and commencing the purpose of a new life, putting my trust in Thee,--there hadst Thou begun to grow sweet unto me, and hadst put gladness in my heart. And I cried out, as I read this outwardly, finding it inwardly. Nor would I be multiplied with worldly goods; wasting away time, and wasted by time; whereas I had in Thy eternal Simple Essence other corn, and wine, and oil. And with a loud cry of my heart I cried out in the next verse, O in peace, O for The Self-same! O what said he, I will lay me down and sleep, for who shall hinder us, when cometh to pass that saying which is written, Death is swallowed up in victory? And Thou surpassingly art the Self-same, Who art not changed; and in Thee is rest which forgetteth all toil, for there is none other with Thee, nor are we to seek those many other things, which are not what Thou art: but Thou, Lord, alone hast made me dwell in hope. I read, and kindled; nor found I what to do to those deaf and dead, of whom myself had been, a pestilent person, a bitter and a blind bawler against those writings, which are honied with the honey of heaven, and lightsome with Thine own light: and I was consumed with zeal at the enemies of this Scripture. When shall I recall all which passed in those holy-days? Yet neither have I forgotten, nor will I pass over the severity of Thy scourge, and the wonderful swiftness of Thy mercy. Thou didst then torment me with pain in my teeth; which when it had come to such height that I could not speak, it came into my heart to desire all my friends present to pray for me to Thee, the God of all manner of health. And this I wrote on wax, and gave it them to read. Presently so soon as with humble devotion we had bowed our knees, that pain went away. But what pain? or how went it away? I was affrighted, O my Lord, my God; for from infancy I had never experienced the like. And the power of Thy Nod was deeply conveyed to me, and rejoicing in faith, I praised Thy Name. And that faith suffered me not to be at ease about my past sins, which were not yet forgiven me by Thy baptism. The vintage-vacation ended, I gave notice to the Milanese to provide their scholars with another master to sell words to them; for that I had both made choice to serve Thee, and through my difficulty of breathing and pain in my chest was not equal to the Professorship. And by letters I signified to Thy Prelate, the holy man Ambrose, my former errors and present desires, begging his advice what of Thy Scriptures I had best read, to become readier and fitter for receiving so great grace. He recommended Isaiah the Prophet: I believe, because he above the rest is a more clear foreshower of the Gospel and of the calling of the Gentiles. But I, not understanding the first lesson in him, and imagining the whole to be like it, laid it by, to be resumed when better practised in our Lord's own words. Thence, when the time was come wherein I was to give in my name, we left the country and returned to Milan. It pleased Alypius also to be with me born again in Thee, being already clothed with the humility befitting Thy Sacraments; and a most valiant tamer of the body, so as, with unwonted venture, to wear the frozen ground of Italy with his bare feet. We joined with us the boy Adeodatus, born after the flesh, of my sin. Excellently hadst Thou made him. He was not quite fifteen, and in wit surpassed many grave and learned men. I confess unto Thee Thy gifts, O Lord my God, Creator of all, and abundantly able to reform our deformities: for I had no part in that boy, but the sin. For that we brought him up in Thy discipline, it was Thou, none else, had inspired us with it. I confess unto Thee Thy gifts. There is a book of ours entitled The Master; it is a dialogue between him and me. Thou knowest that all there ascribed to the person conversing with me were his ideas, in his sixteenth year. Much besides, and yet more admirable, I found in him. That talent struck awe into me. And who but Thou could be the workmaster of such wonders? Soon didst Thou take his life from the earth: and I now remember him without anxiety, fearing nothing for his childhood or youth, or his whole self. Him we joined with us, our contemporary in grace, to be brought up in Thy discipline: and we were baptised, and anxiety for our past life vanished from us. Nor was I sated in those days with the wondrous sweetness of considering the depth of Thy counsels concerning the salvation of mankind. How did I weep, in Thy Hymns and Canticles, touched to the quick by the voices of Thy sweet-attuned Church! The voices flowed into mine ears, and the Truth distilled into my heart, whence the affections of my devotion overflowed, and tears ran down, and happy was I therein. Not long had the Church of Milan begun to use this kind of consolation and exhortation, the brethren zealously joining with harmony of voice and hearts. For it was a year, or not much more, that Justina, mother to the Emperor Valentinian, a child, persecuted Thy servant Ambrose, in favour of her heresy, to which she was seduced by the Arians. The devout people kept watch in the Church, ready to die with their Bishop Thy servant. There my mother Thy handmaid, bearing a chief part of those anxieties and watchings, lived for prayer. We, yet unwarmed by the heat of Thy Spirit, still were stirred up by the sight of the amazed and disquieted city. Then it was first instituted that after the manner of the Eastern Churches, Hymns and Psalms should be sung, lest the people should wax faint through the tediousness of sorrow: and from that day to this the custom is retained, divers (yea, almost all) Thy congregations, throughout other parts of the world following herein. Then didst Thou by a vision discover to Thy forenamed Bishop where the bodies of Gervasius and Protasius the martyrs lay hid (whom Thou hadst in Thy secret treasury stored uncorrupted so many years), whence Thou mightest seasonably produce them to repress the fury of a woman, but an Empress. For when they were discovered and dug up, and with due honour translated to the Ambrosian Basilica, not only they who were vexed with unclean spirits (the devils confessing themselves) were cured, but a certain man who had for many years been blind, a citizen, and well known to the city, asking and hearing the reason of the people's confused joy, sprang forth desiring his guide to lead him thither. Led thither, he begged to be allowed to touch with his handkerchief the bier of Thy saints, whose death is precious in Thy sight. Which when he had done, and put to his eyes, they were forthwith opened. Thence did the fame spread, thence Thy praises glowed, shone; thence the mind of that enemy, though not turned to the soundness of believing, was yet turned back from her fury of persecuting. Thanks to Thee, O my God. Whence and whither hast Thou thus led my remembrance, that I should confess these things also unto Thee? which great though they be, I had passed by in forgetfulness. And yet then, when the odour of Thy ointments was so fragrant, did we not run after Thee. Therefore did I more weep among the singing of Thy Hymns, formerly sighing after Thee, and at length breathing in Thee, as far as the breath may enter into this our house of grass. Thou that makest men to dwell of one mind in one house, didst join with us Euodius also, a young man of our own city. Who being an officer of Court, was before us converted to Thee and baptised: and quitting his secular warfare, girded himself to Thine. We were together, about to dwell together in our devout purpose. We sought where we might serve Thee most usefully, and were together returning to Africa: whitherward being as far as Ostia, my mother departed this life. Much I omit, as hastening much. Receive my confessions and thanksgivings, O my God, for innumerable things whereof I am silent. But I will not omit whatsoever my soul would bring forth concerning that Thy handmaid, who brought me forth, both in the flesh, that I might be born to this temporal light, and in heart, that I might be born to Light eternal. Not her gifts, but Thine in her, would I speak of; for neither did she make nor educate herself. Thou createdst her; nor did her father and mother know what a one should come from them. And the sceptre of Thy Christ, the discipline of Thine only Son, in a Christian house, a good member of Thy Church, educated her in Thy fear. Yet for her good discipline was she wont to commend not so much her mother's diligence, as that of a certain decrepit maid-servant, who had carried her father when a child, as little ones used to be carried at the backs of elder girls. For which reason, and for her great age, and excellent conversation, was she, in that Christian family, well respected by its heads. Whence also the charge of her master's daughters was entrusted to her, to which she gave diligent heed, restraining them earnestly, when necessary, with a holy severity, and teaching them with a grave discretion. For, except at those hours wherein they were most temporately fed at their parents' table, she would not suffer them, though parched with thirst, to drink even water; preventing an evil custom, and adding this wholesome advice: "Ye drink water now, because you have not wine in your power; but when you come to be married, and be made mistresses of cellars and cupboards, you will scorn water, but the custom of drinking will abide." By this method of instruction, and the authority she had, she refrained the greediness of childhood, and moulded their very thirst to such an excellent moderation that what they should not, that they would not. And yet (as Thy handmaid told me her son) there had crept upon her a love of wine. For when (as the manner was) she, as though a sober maiden, was bidden by her parents to draw wine out of the hogshed, holding the vessel under the opening, before she poured the wine into the flagon, she sipped a little with the tip of her lips; for more her instinctive feelings refused. For this she did, not out of any desire of drink, but out of the exuberance of youth, whereby it boils over in mirthful freaks, which in youthful spirits are wont to be kept under by the gravity of their elders. And thus by adding to that little, daily littles (for whoso despiseth little things shall fall by little and little), she had fallen into such a habit as greedily to drink off her little cup brim-full almost of wine. Where was then that discreet old woman, and that her earnest countermanding? Would aught avail against a secret disease, if Thy healing hand, O Lord, watched not over us? Father, mother, and governors absent, Thou present, who createdst, who callest, who also by those set over us, workest something towards the salvation of our souls, what didst Thou then, O my God? how didst Thou cure her? how heal her? didst Thou not out of another soul bring forth a hard and a sharp taunt, like a lancet out of Thy secret store, and with one touch remove all that foul stuff? For a maid-servant with whom she used to go to the cellar, falling to words (as it happens) with her little mistress, when alone with her, taunted her with this fault, with most bitter insult, calling her wine-bibber. With which taunt she, stung to the quick, saw the foulness of her fault, and instantly condemned and forsook it. As flattering friends pervert, so reproachful enemies mostly correct. Yet not what by them Thou doest, but what themselves purposed, dost Thou repay them. For she in her anger sought to vex her young mistress, not to amend her; and did it in private, either for that the time and place of the quarrel so found them; or lest herself also should have anger, for discovering it thus late. But Thou, Lord, Governor of all in heaven and earth, who turnest to Thy purposes the deepest currents, and the ruled turbulence of the tide of times, didst by the very unhealthiness of one soul heal another; lest any, when he observes this, should ascribe it to his own power, even when another, whom he wished to be reformed, is reformed through words of his. Brought up thus modestly and soberly, and made subject rather by Thee to her parents, than by her parents to Thee, so soon as she was of marriageable age, being bestowed upon a husband, she served him as her lord; and did her diligence to win him unto Thee, preaching Thee unto him by her conversation; by which Thou ornamentedst her, making her reverently amiable, and admirable unto her husband. And she so endured the wronging of her bed as never to have any quarrel with her husband thereon. For she looked for Thy mercy upon him, that believing in Thee, he might be made chaste. But besides this, he was fervid, as in his affections, so in anger: but she had learnt not to resist an angry husband, not in deed only, but not even in word. Only when he was smoothed and tranquil, and in a temper to receive it, she would give an account of her actions, if haply he had overhastily taken offence. In a word, while many matrons, who had milder husbands, yet bore even in their faces marks of shame, would in familiar talk blame their husbands' lives, she would blame their tongues, giving them, as in jest, earnest advice: "That from the time they heard the marriage writings read to them, they should account them as indentures, whereby they were made servants; and so, remembering their condition, ought not to set themselves up against their lords." And when they, knowing what a choleric husband she endured, marvelled that it had never been heard, nor by any token perceived, that Patricius had beaten his wife, or that there had been any domestic difference between them, even for one day, and confidentially asking the reason, she taught them her practice above mentioned. Those wives who observed it found the good, and returned thanks; those who observed it not, found no relief, and suffered. Her mother-in-law also, at first by whisperings of evil servants incensed against her, she so overcame by observance and persevering endurance and meekness, that she of her own accord discovered to her son the meddling tongues whereby the domestic peace betwixt her and her daughter-in-law had been disturbed, asking him to correct them. Then, when in compliance with his mother, and for the well-ordering of the family, he had with stripes corrected those discovered, at her will who had discovered them, she promised the like reward to any who, to please her, should speak ill of her daughter-in-law to her: and none now venturing, they lived together with a remarkable sweetness of mutual kindness. This great gift also thou bestowedst, O my God, my mercy, upon that good handmaid of Thine, in whose womb Thou createdst me, that between any disagreeing and discordant parties where she was able, she showed herself such a peacemaker, that hearing on both sides most bitter things, such as swelling and indigested choler uses to break out into, when the crudities of enmities are breathed out in sour discourses to a present friend against an absent enemy, she never would disclose aught of the one unto the other, but what might tend to their reconcilement. A small good this might appear to me, did I not to my grief know numberless persons, who through some horrible and wide-spreading contagion of sin, not only disclose to persons mutually angered things said in anger, but add withal things never spoken, whereas to humane humanity, it ought to seem a light thing not to torment or increase ill will by ill words, unless one study withal by good words to quench it. Such was she, Thyself, her most inward Instructor, teaching her in the school of

ways

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

words as it were fixed in our entrails: and the examples of Thy servants, whom for black Thou hadst made bright, and for dead, alive, being piled together in the receptacle of our thoughts, kindled and burned up that our heavy torpor, that we should not sink down to the abyss; and they fired us so vehemently, that all the blasts of subtle tongues from gainsayers might only inflame us the more fiercely, not extinguish us. Nevertheless, because for Thy Name's sake which Thou hast hallowed throughout the earth, this our vow and purpose might also find some to commend it, it seemed like ostentation not to wait for the vacation now so near, but to quit beforehand a public profession, which was before the eyes of all; so that all looking on this act of mine, and observing how near was the time of vintage which I wished to anticipate, would talk much of me, as if I had desired to appear some great one. And what end had it served me, that people should repute and dispute upon my purpose, and that our good should be evil spoken of. Moreover, it had at first troubled me that in this very summer my lungs began to give way, amid too great literary labour, and to breathe deeply with difficulty, and by the pain in my chest to show that they were injured, and to refuse any full or lengthened speaking; this had troubled me, for it almost constrained me of necessity to lay down that burden of teaching, or, if I could be cured and recover, at least to intermit it. But when the full wish for leisure, that I might see how that Thou art the Lord, arose, and was fixed, in me; my God, Thou knowest, I began even to rejoice that I had this secondary, and that no feigned, excuse, which might something moderate the offence taken by those who, for their sons' sake, wished me never to have the freedom of Thy sons. Full then of such joy, I endured till that interval of time were run; it may have been some twenty days, yet they were endured manfully; endured, for the covetousness which aforetime bore a part of this heavy business, had left me, and I remained alone, and had been overwhelmed, had not patience taken its place. Perchance, some of Thy servants, my brethren, may say that I sinned in this, that with a heart fully set on Thy service, I suffered myself to sit even one hour in the chair of lies. Nor would I be contentious. But hast not Thou, O most merciful Lord, pardoned and remitted this sin also, with my other most horrible and deadly sins, in the holy water? Verecundus was worn down with care about this our blessedness, for that being held back by bonds, whereby he was most straitly bound, he saw that he should be severed from us. For himself was not yet a Christian, his wife one of the faithful; and yet hereby, more rigidly than by any other chain, was he let and hindered from the journey which we had now essayed. For he would not, he said, be a Christian on any other terms than on those he could not. However, he offered us courteously to remain at his country-house so long as we should stay there. Thou, O Lord, shalt reward him in the resurrection of the just, seeing Thou hast already given him the lot of the righteous. For although, in our absence, being now at Rome, he was seized with bodily sickness, and therein being made a Christian, and one of the faithful, he departed this life; yet hadst Thou mercy not on him only, but on us also: lest remembering the exceeding kindness of our friend towards us, yet unable to number him among Thy flock, we should be agonised with intolerable sorrow. Thanks unto Thee, our God, we are Thine: Thy suggestions and consolations tell us, Faithful in promises, Thou now requitest Verecundus for his country-house of Cassiacum, where from the fever of the world we reposed in Thee, with the eternal freshness of Thy Paradise: for that Thou hast forgiven him his sins upon earth, in that rich mountain, that mountain which yieldeth milk, Thine own mountain. He then had at that time sorrow, but Nebridius joy. For although he also, not being yet a Christian, had fallen into the pit of that most pernicious error, believing the flesh of Thy Son to be a phantom: yet emerging thence, he believed as we did; not as yet endued with any Sacraments of Thy Church, but a most ardent searcher out of truth. Whom, not long after our conversion and regeneration by Thy Baptism, being also a faithful member of the Church Catholic, and serving Thee in perfect chastity and continence amongst his people in Africa, his whole house having through him first been made Christian, didst Thou release from the flesh; and now he lives in Abraham's bosom. Whatever that be, which is signified by that bosom, there lives my Nebridius, my sweet friend, and Thy child, O Lord, adopted of a freed man: there he liveth. For what other place is there for such a soul? There he liveth, whereof he asked much of me, a poor inexperienced man. Now lays he not his ear to my mouth, but his spiritual mouth unto Thy fountain, and drinketh as much as he can receive, wisdom in proportion to his thirst, endlessly happy. Nor do I think that he is so inebriated therewith, as to forget me; seeing Thou, Lord, Whom he drinketh, art mindful of us. So were we then, comforting Verecundus, who sorrowed, as far as friendship permitted, that our conversion was of such sort; and exhorting him to become faithful, according to his measure, namely, of a married estate; and awaiting Nebridius to follow us, which, being so near, he was all but doing: and so, lo! those days rolled by at length; for long and many they seemed, for the love I bare to the easeful liberty, that I might sing to Thee, from my inmost marrow, My heart hath said unto Thee, I have sought Thy face: Thy face, Lord, will I seek. Now was the day come wherein I was in deed to be freed of my Rhetoric Professorship, whereof in thought I was already freed. And it was done. Thou didst rescue my tongue, whence Thou hadst before rescued my heart. And I blessed Thee, rejoicing; retiring with all mine to the villa. What I there did in writing, which was now enlisted in Thy service, though still, in this breathing-time as it were, panting from the school of pride, my books may witness, as well what I debated with others, as what with myself alone, before Thee: what with Nebridius, who was absent, my Epistles bear witness. And when shall I have time to rehearse all Thy great benefits towards us at that time, especially when hasting on to yet greater mercies? For my remembrance recalls me, and pleasant is it to me, O Lord, to confess to Thee, by what inward goads Thou tamedst me; and how Thou hast evened me, lowering the mountains and hills of my high imaginations, straightening my crookedness, and smoothing my rough ways; and how Thou also subduedst the brother of my heart, Alypius, unto the name of Thy Only Begotten, our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, which he would not at first vouchsafe to have inserted in our writings. For rather would he have them savour of the lofty cedars of the Schools, which the Lord hath now broken down, than of the wholesome herbs of the Church, the antidote against serpents. Oh, in what accents spake I unto Thee, my God, when I read the Psalms of David, those faithful songs, and sounds of devotion, which allow of no swelling spirit, as yet a Catechumen, and a novice in Thy real love, resting in that villa, with Alypius a Catechumen, my mother cleaving to us, in female garb with masculine faith, with the tranquillity of age, motherly love, Christian piety! Oh, what accents did I utter unto Thee in those Psalms, and how was I by them kindled towards Thee, and on fire to rehearse them, if possible, through the whole world, against the pride of mankind! And yet they are sung through the whole world, nor can any hide himself from Thy heat. With what vehement and bitter sorrow was I angered at the Manichees! and again I pitied them, for they knew not those Sacraments, those medicines, and were mad against the antidote which might have recovered them of their madness. How I would they had then been somewhere near me, and without my knowing that they were there, could have beheld my countenance, and heard my words, when I read the fourth Psalm in that time of my rest, and how that Psalm wrought upon me: When I called, the God of my righteousness heard me; in tribulation Thou enlargedst me. Have mercy upon me, O Lord, and hear my prayer. Would that what I uttered on these words, they could hear, without my knowing whether they heard, lest they should think I spake it for their sakes! Because in truth neither should I speak the same things, nor in the same way, if I perceived that they heard and saw me; nor if I spake them would they so receive them, as when I spake by and for myself before Thee, out of the natural feelings of my soul. I trembled for fear, and again kindled with hope, and with rejoicing in Thy mercy, O Father; and all issued forth both by mine eyes and voice, when Thy good Spirit turning unto us, said, O ye sons of men, how long slow of heart? why do ye love vanity, and seek after leasing? For I had loved vanity, and sought after leasing. And Thou, O Lord, hadst already magnified Thy Holy One, raising Him from the dead, and setting Him at Thy right hand, whence from on high He should send His promise, the Comforter, the Spirit of truth. And He had already sent Him, but I knew it not; He had sent Him, because He was now magnified, rising again from the dead, and ascending into heaven. For till then, the Spirit was not yet given, because Jesus was not yet glorified. And the prophet cries out, How long, slow of heart? why do ye love vanity, and seek after leasing? Know this, that the Lord hath magnified His Holy One. He cries out, How long? He cries out, Know this: and I so long, not knowing, loved vanity, and sought after leasing: and therefore I heard and trembled, because it was spoken unto such as I remembered myself to have been. For in those phantoms which I had held for truths, was there vanity and leasing; and I spake aloud many things earnestly and forcibly, in the bitterness of my remembrance. Which would they had heard, who yet love vanity and seek after leasing! They would perchance have been troubled, and have vomited it up; and Thou wouldest hear them when they cried unto Thee; for by a true death in the flesh did He die for us, who now intercedeth unto Thee for us. I further read, Be angry, and sin not. And how was I moved, O my God, who had now learned to be angry at myself for things past, that I might not sin in time to come! Yea, to be justly angry; for that it was not another nature of a people of darkness which sinned for me, as they say who are not angry at themselves, and treasure up wrath against the day of wrath, and of the revelation of Thy just judgment. Nor were my good things now without, nor sought with the eyes of flesh in that earthly sun; for they that would have joy from without soon become vain, and waste themselves on the things seen and temporal, and in their famished thoughts do lick their very shadows. Oh that they were wearied out with their famine, and said, Who will show us good things? And we would say, and they hear, The light of Thy countenance is sealed upon us. For we are not that light which enlighteneth every man, but we are enlightened by Thee; that having been sometimes darkness, we may be light in Thee. Oh that they could see the eternal Internal, which having tasted, I was grieved that I could not show It them, so long as they brought me their heart in their eyes roving abroad from Thee, while they said, Who will show us good things? For there, where I was angry within myself in my chamber, where I was inwardly pricked, where I had sacrificed, slaying my old man and commencing the purpose of a new life, putting my trust in Thee,--there hadst Thou begun to grow sweet unto me, and hadst put gladness in my heart. And I cried out, as I read this outwardly, finding it inwardly. Nor would I be multiplied with worldly goods; wasting away time, and wasted by time; whereas I had in Thy eternal Simple Essence other corn, and wine, and oil. And with a loud cry of my heart I cried out in the next verse, O in peace, O for The Self-same! O what said he, I will lay me down and sleep, for who shall hinder us, when cometh to pass that saying which is written, Death is swallowed up in victory? And Thou surpassingly art the Self-same, Who art not changed; and in Thee is rest which forgetteth all toil, for there is none other with Thee, nor are we to seek those many other things, which are not what Thou art: but Thou, Lord, alone hast made me dwell in hope. I read, and kindled; nor found I what to do to those deaf and dead, of whom myself had been, a pestilent person, a bitter and a blind bawler against those writings, which are honied with the honey of heaven, and lightsome with Thine own light: and I was consumed with zeal at the enemies of this Scripture. When shall I recall all which passed in those holy-days? Yet neither have I forgotten, nor will I pass over the severity of Thy scourge, and the wonderful swiftness of Thy mercy. Thou didst then torment me with pain in my teeth; which when it had come to such height that I could not speak, it came into my heart to desire all my friends present to pray for me to Thee, the God of all manner of health. And this I wrote on wax, and gave it them to read. Presently so soon as with humble devotion we had bowed our knees, that pain went away. But what pain? or how went it away? I was affrighted, O my Lord, my God; for from infancy I had never experienced the like. And the power of Thy Nod was deeply conveyed to me, and rejoicing in faith, I praised Thy Name. And that faith suffered me not to be at ease about my past sins, which were not yet forgiven me by Thy baptism. The vintage-vacation ended, I gave notice to the Milanese to provide their scholars with another master to sell words to them; for that I had both made choice to serve Thee, and through my difficulty of breathing and pain in my chest was not equal to the Professorship. And by letters I signified to Thy Prelate, the holy man Ambrose, my former errors and present desires, begging his advice what of Thy Scriptures I had best read, to become readier and fitter for receiving so great grace. He recommended Isaiah the Prophet: I believe, because he above the rest is a more clear foreshower of the Gospel and of the calling of the Gentiles. But I, not understanding the first lesson in him, and imagining the whole to be like it, laid it by, to be resumed when better practised in our Lord's own words. Thence, when the time was come wherein I was to give in my name, we left the country and returned to Milan. It pleased Alypius also to be with me born again in Thee, being already clothed with the humility befitting Thy Sacraments; and a most valiant tamer of the body, so as, with unwonted venture, to wear the frozen ground of Italy with his bare feet. We joined with us the boy Adeodatus, born after the flesh, of my sin. Excellently hadst Thou made him. He was not quite fifteen, and in wit surpassed many grave and learned men. I confess unto Thee Thy gifts, O Lord my God, Creator of all, and abundantly able to reform our deformities: for I had no part in that boy, but the sin. For that we brought him up in Thy discipline, it was Thou, none else, had inspired us with it. I confess unto Thee Thy gifts. There is a book of ours entitled The Master; it is a dialogue between him and me. Thou knowest that all there ascribed to the person conversing with me were his ideas, in his sixteenth year. Much besides, and yet more admirable, I found in him. That talent struck awe into me. And who but Thou could be the workmaster of such wonders? Soon didst Thou take his life from the earth: and I now remember him without anxiety, fearing nothing for his childhood or youth, or his whole self. Him we joined with us, our contemporary in grace, to be brought up in Thy discipline: and we were baptised, and anxiety for our past life vanished from us. Nor was I sated in those days with the wondrous sweetness of considering the depth of Thy counsels concerning the salvation of mankind. How did I weep, in Thy Hymns and Canticles, touched to the quick by the voices of Thy sweet-attuned Church! The voices flowed into mine ears, and the Truth distilled into my heart, whence the affections of my devotion overflowed, and tears ran down, and happy was I therein. Not long had the Church of Milan begun to use this kind of consolation and exhortation, the brethren zealously joining with harmony of voice and hearts. For it was a year, or not much more, that Justina, mother to the Emperor Valentinian, a child, persecuted Thy servant Ambrose, in favour of her heresy, to which she was seduced by the Arians. The devout people kept watch in the Church, ready to die with their Bishop Thy servant. There my mother Thy handmaid, bearing a chief part of those anxieties and watchings, lived for prayer. We, yet unwarmed by the heat of Thy Spirit, still were stirred up by the sight of the amazed and disquieted city. Then it was first instituted that after the manner of the Eastern Churches, Hymns and Psalms should be sung, lest the people should wax faint through the tediousness of sorrow: and from that day to this the custom is retained, divers (yea, almost all) Thy congregations, throughout other parts of the world following herein. Then didst Thou by a vision discover to Thy forenamed Bishop where the bodies of Gervasius and Protasius the martyrs lay hid (whom Thou hadst in Thy secret treasury stored uncorrupted so many years), whence Thou mightest seasonably produce them to repress the fury of a woman, but an Empress. For when they were discovered and dug up, and with due honour translated to the Ambrosian Basilica, not only they who were vexed with unclean spirits (the devils confessing themselves) were cured, but a certain man who had for many years been blind, a citizen, and well known to the city, asking and hearing the reason of the people's confused joy, sprang forth desiring his guide to lead him thither. Led thither, he begged to be allowed to touch with his handkerchief the bier of Thy saints, whose death is precious in Thy sight. Which when he had done, and put to his eyes, they were forthwith opened. Thence did the fame spread, thence Thy praises glowed, shone; thence the mind of that enemy, though not turned to the soundness of believing, was yet turned back from her fury of persecuting. Thanks to Thee, O my God. Whence and whither hast Thou thus led my remembrance, that I should confess these things also unto Thee? which great though they be, I had passed by in forgetfulness. And yet then, when the odour of Thy ointments was so fragrant, did we not run after Thee. Therefore did I more weep among the singing of Thy Hymns, formerly sighing after Thee, and at length breathing in Thee, as far as the breath may enter into this our house of grass. Thou that makest men to dwell of one mind in one house, didst join with us Euodius also, a young man of our own city. Who being an officer of Court, was before us converted to Thee and baptised: and quitting his secular warfare, girded himself to Thine. We were together, about to dwell together in our devout purpose. We sought where we might serve Thee most usefully, and were together returning to Africa: whitherward being as far as Ostia, my mother departed this life. Much I omit, as hastening much. Receive my confessions and thanksgivings, O my God, for innumerable things whereof I am silent. But I will not omit whatsoever my soul would bring forth concerning that Thy handmaid, who brought me forth, both in the flesh, that I might be born to this temporal light, and in heart, that I might be born to Light eternal. Not her gifts, but Thine in her, would I speak of; for neither did she make nor educate herself. Thou createdst her; nor did her father and mother know what a one should come from them. And the sceptre of Thy Christ, the discipline of Thine only Son, in a Christian house, a good member of Thy Church, educated her in Thy fear. Yet for her good discipline was she wont to commend not so much her mother's diligence, as that of a certain decrepit maid-servant, who had carried her father when a child, as little ones used to be carried at the backs of elder girls. For which reason, and for her great age, and excellent conversation, was she, in that Christian family, well respected by its heads. Whence also the charge of her master's daughters was entrusted to her, to which she gave diligent heed, restraining them earnestly, when necessary, with a holy severity, and teaching them with a grave discretion. For, except at those hours wherein they were most temporately fed at their parents' table, she would not suffer them, though parched with thirst, to drink even water; preventing an evil custom, and adding this wholesome advice: "Ye drink water now, because you have not wine in your power; but when you come to be married, and be made mistresses of cellars and cupboards, you will scorn water, but the custom of drinking will abide." By this method of instruction, and the authority she had, she refrained the greediness of childhood, and moulded their very thirst to such an excellent moderation that what they should not, that they would not. And yet (as Thy handmaid told me her son) there had crept upon her a love of wine. For when (as the manner was) she, as though a sober maiden, was bidden by her parents to draw wine out of the hogshed, holding the vessel under the opening, before she poured the wine into the flagon, she sipped a little with the tip of her lips; for more her instinctive feelings refused. For this she did, not out of any desire of drink, but out of the exuberance of youth, whereby it boils over in mirthful freaks, which in youthful spirits are wont to be kept under by the gravity of their elders. And thus by adding to that little, daily littles (for whoso despiseth little things shall fall by little and little), she had fallen into such a habit as greedily to drink off her little cup brim-full almost of wine. Where was then that discreet old woman, and that her earnest countermanding? Would aught avail against a secret disease, if Thy healing hand, O Lord, watched not over us? Father, mother, and governors absent, Thou present, who createdst, who callest, who also by those set over us, workest something towards the salvation of our souls, what didst Thou then, O my God? how didst Thou cure her? how heal her? didst Thou not out of another soul bring forth a hard and a sharp taunt, like a lancet out of Thy secret store, and with one touch remove all that foul stuff? For a maid-servant with whom she used to go to the cellar, falling to words (as it happens) with her little mistress, when alone with her, taunted her with this fault, with most bitter insult, calling her wine-bibber. With which taunt she, stung to the quick, saw the foulness of her fault, and instantly condemned and forsook it. As flattering friends pervert, so reproachful enemies mostly correct. Yet not what by them Thou doest, but what themselves purposed, dost Thou repay them. For she in her anger sought to vex her young mistress, not to amend her; and did it in private, either for that the time and place of the quarrel so found them; or lest herself also should have anger, for discovering it thus late. But Thou, Lord, Governor of all in heaven and earth, who turnest to Thy purposes the deepest currents, and the ruled turbulence of the tide of times, didst by the very unhealthiness of one soul heal another; lest any, when he observes this, should ascribe it to his own power, even when another, whom he wished to be reformed, is reformed through words of his. Brought up thus modestly and soberly, and made subject rather by Thee to her parents, than by her parents to Thee, so soon as she was of marriageable age, being bestowed upon a husband, she served him as her lord; and did her diligence to win him unto Thee, preaching Thee unto him by her conversation; by which Thou ornamentedst her, making her reverently amiable, and admirable unto her husband. And she so endured the wronging of her bed as never to have any quarrel with her husband thereon. For she looked for Thy mercy upon him, that believing in Thee, he might be made chaste. But besides this, he was fervid, as in his affections, so in anger: but she had learnt not to resist an angry husband, not in deed only, but not even in word. Only when he was smoothed and tranquil, and in a temper to receive it, she would give an account of her actions, if haply he had overhastily taken offence. In a word, while many matrons, who had milder husbands, yet bore even in their faces marks of shame, would in familiar talk blame their husbands' lives, she would blame their tongues, giving them, as in jest, earnest advice: "That from the time they heard the marriage writings read to them, they should account them as indentures, whereby they were made servants; and so, remembering their condition, ought not to set themselves up against their lords." And when they, knowing what a choleric husband she endured, marvelled that it had never been heard, nor by any token perceived, that Patricius had beaten his wife, or that there had been any domestic difference between them, even for one day, and confidentially asking the reason, she taught them her practice above mentioned. Those wives who observed it found the good, and returned thanks; those who observed it not, found no relief, and suffered. Her mother-in-law also, at first by whisperings of evil servants incensed against her, she so overcame by observance and persevering endurance and meekness, that she of her own accord discovered to her son the meddling tongues whereby the domestic peace betwixt her and her daughter-in-law had been disturbed, asking him to correct them. Then, when in compliance with his mother, and for the well-ordering of the family, he had with stripes corrected those discovered, at her will who had discovered them, she promised the like reward to any who, to please her, should speak ill of her daughter-in-law to her: and none now venturing, they lived together with a remarkable sweetness of mutual kindness. This great gift also thou bestowedst, O my God, my mercy, upon that good handmaid of Thine, in whose womb Thou createdst me, that between any disagreeing and discordant parties where she was able, she showed herself such a peacemaker, that hearing on both sides most bitter things, such as swelling and indigested choler uses to break out into, when the crudities of enmities are breathed out in sour discourses to a present friend against an absent enemy, she never would disclose aught of the one unto the other, but what might tend to their reconcilement. A small good this might appear to me, did I not to my grief know numberless persons, who through some horrible and wide-spreading contagion of sin, not only disclose to persons mutually angered things said in anger, but add withal things never spoken, whereas to humane humanity, it ought to seem a light thing not to torment or increase ill will by ill words, unless one study withal by good words to quench it. Such was she, Thyself, her most inward Instructor, teaching her in the school of

begotten

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

words as it were fixed in our entrails: and the examples of Thy servants, whom for black Thou hadst made bright, and for dead, alive, being piled together in the receptacle of our thoughts, kindled and burned up that our heavy torpor, that we should not sink down to the abyss; and they fired us so vehemently, that all the blasts of subtle tongues from gainsayers might only inflame us the more fiercely, not extinguish us. Nevertheless, because for Thy Name's sake which Thou hast hallowed throughout the earth, this our vow and purpose might also find some to commend it, it seemed like ostentation not to wait for the vacation now so near, but to quit beforehand a public profession, which was before the eyes of all; so that all looking on this act of mine, and observing how near was the time of vintage which I wished to anticipate, would talk much of me, as if I had desired to appear some great one. And what end had it served me, that people should repute and dispute upon my purpose, and that our good should be evil spoken of. Moreover, it had at first troubled me that in this very summer my lungs began to give way, amid too great literary labour, and to breathe deeply with difficulty, and by the pain in my chest to show that they were injured, and to refuse any full or lengthened speaking; this had troubled me, for it almost constrained me of necessity to lay down that burden of teaching, or, if I could be cured and recover, at least to intermit it. But when the full wish for leisure, that I might see how that Thou art the Lord, arose, and was fixed, in me; my God, Thou knowest, I began even to rejoice that I had this secondary, and that no feigned, excuse, which might something moderate the offence taken by those who, for their sons' sake, wished me never to have the freedom of Thy sons. Full then of such joy, I endured till that interval of time were run; it may have been some twenty days, yet they were endured manfully; endured, for the covetousness which aforetime bore a part of this heavy business, had left me, and I remained alone, and had been overwhelmed, had not patience taken its place. Perchance, some of Thy servants, my brethren, may say that I sinned in this, that with a heart fully set on Thy service, I suffered myself to sit even one hour in the chair of lies. Nor would I be contentious. But hast not Thou, O most merciful Lord, pardoned and remitted this sin also, with my other most horrible and deadly sins, in the holy water? Verecundus was worn down with care about this our blessedness, for that being held back by bonds, whereby he was most straitly bound, he saw that he should be severed from us. For himself was not yet a Christian, his wife one of the faithful; and yet hereby, more rigidly than by any other chain, was he let and hindered from the journey which we had now essayed. For he would not, he said, be a Christian on any other terms than on those he could not. However, he offered us courteously to remain at his country-house so long as we should stay there. Thou, O Lord, shalt reward him in the resurrection of the just, seeing Thou hast already given him the lot of the righteous. For although, in our absence, being now at Rome, he was seized with bodily sickness, and therein being made a Christian, and one of the faithful, he departed this life; yet hadst Thou mercy not on him only, but on us also: lest remembering the exceeding kindness of our friend towards us, yet unable to number him among Thy flock, we should be agonised with intolerable sorrow. Thanks unto Thee, our God, we are Thine: Thy suggestions and consolations tell us, Faithful in promises, Thou now requitest Verecundus for his country-house of Cassiacum, where from the fever of the world we reposed in Thee, with the eternal freshness of Thy Paradise: for that Thou hast forgiven him his sins upon earth, in that rich mountain, that mountain which yieldeth milk, Thine own mountain. He then had at that time sorrow, but Nebridius joy. For although he also, not being yet a Christian, had fallen into the pit of that most pernicious error, believing the flesh of Thy Son to be a phantom: yet emerging thence, he believed as we did; not as yet endued with any Sacraments of Thy Church, but a most ardent searcher out of truth. Whom, not long after our conversion and regeneration by Thy Baptism, being also a faithful member of the Church Catholic, and serving Thee in perfect chastity and continence amongst his people in Africa, his whole house having through him first been made Christian, didst Thou release from the flesh; and now he lives in Abraham's bosom. Whatever that be, which is signified by that bosom, there lives my Nebridius, my sweet friend, and Thy child, O Lord, adopted of a freed man: there he liveth. For what other place is there for such a soul? There he liveth, whereof he asked much of me, a poor inexperienced man. Now lays he not his ear to my mouth, but his spiritual mouth unto Thy fountain, and drinketh as much as he can receive, wisdom in proportion to his thirst, endlessly happy. Nor do I think that he is so inebriated therewith, as to forget me; seeing Thou, Lord, Whom he drinketh, art mindful of us. So were we then, comforting Verecundus, who sorrowed, as far as friendship permitted, that our conversion was of such sort; and exhorting him to become faithful, according to his measure, namely, of a married estate; and awaiting Nebridius to follow us, which, being so near, he was all but doing: and so, lo! those days rolled by at length; for long and many they seemed, for the love I bare to the easeful liberty, that I might sing to Thee, from my inmost marrow, My heart hath said unto Thee, I have sought Thy face: Thy face, Lord, will I seek. Now was the day come wherein I was in deed to be freed of my Rhetoric Professorship, whereof in thought I was already freed. And it was done. Thou didst rescue my tongue, whence Thou hadst before rescued my heart. And I blessed Thee, rejoicing; retiring with all mine to the villa. What I there did in writing, which was now enlisted in Thy service, though still, in this breathing-time as it were, panting from the school of pride, my books may witness, as well what I debated with others, as what with myself alone, before Thee: what with Nebridius, who was absent, my Epistles bear witness. And when shall I have time to rehearse all Thy great benefits towards us at that time, especially when hasting on to yet greater mercies? For my remembrance recalls me, and pleasant is it to me, O Lord, to confess to Thee, by what inward goads Thou tamedst me; and how Thou hast evened me, lowering the mountains and hills of my high imaginations, straightening my crookedness, and smoothing my rough ways; and how Thou also subduedst the brother of my heart, Alypius, unto the name of Thy Only Begotten, our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, which he would not at first vouchsafe to have inserted in our writings. For rather would he have them savour of the lofty cedars of the Schools, which the Lord hath now broken down, than of the wholesome herbs of the Church, the antidote against serpents. Oh, in what accents spake I unto Thee, my God, when I read the Psalms of David, those faithful songs, and sounds of devotion, which allow of no swelling spirit, as yet a Catechumen, and a novice in Thy real love, resting in that villa, with Alypius a Catechumen, my mother cleaving to us, in female garb with masculine faith, with the tranquillity of age, motherly love, Christian piety! Oh, what accents did I utter unto Thee in those Psalms, and how was I by them kindled towards Thee, and on fire to rehearse them, if possible, through the whole world, against the pride of mankind! And yet they are sung through the whole world, nor can any hide himself from Thy heat. With what vehement and bitter sorrow was I angered at the Manichees! and again I pitied them, for they knew not those Sacraments, those medicines, and were mad against the antidote which might have recovered them of their madness. How I would they had then been somewhere near me, and without my knowing that they were there, could have beheld my countenance, and heard my words, when I read the fourth Psalm in that time of my rest, and how that Psalm wrought upon me: When I called, the God of my righteousness heard me; in tribulation Thou enlargedst me. Have mercy upon me, O Lord, and hear my prayer. Would that what I uttered on these words, they could hear, without my knowing whether they heard, lest they should think I spake it for their sakes! Because in truth neither should I speak the same things, nor in the same way, if I perceived that they heard and saw me; nor if I spake them would they so receive them, as when I spake by and for myself before Thee, out of the natural feelings of my soul. I trembled for fear, and again kindled with hope, and with rejoicing in Thy mercy, O Father; and all issued forth both by mine eyes and voice, when Thy good Spirit turning unto us, said, O ye sons of men, how long slow of heart? why do ye love vanity, and seek after leasing? For I had loved vanity, and sought after leasing. And Thou, O Lord, hadst already magnified Thy Holy One, raising Him from the dead, and setting Him at Thy right hand, whence from on high He should send His promise, the Comforter, the Spirit of truth. And He had already sent Him, but I knew it not; He had sent Him, because He was now magnified, rising again from the dead, and ascending into heaven. For till then, the Spirit was not yet given, because Jesus was not yet glorified. And the prophet cries out, How long, slow of heart? why do ye love vanity, and seek after leasing? Know this, that the Lord hath magnified His Holy One. He cries out, How long? He cries out, Know this: and I so long, not knowing, loved vanity, and sought after leasing: and therefore I heard and trembled, because it was spoken unto such as I remembered myself to have been. For in those phantoms which I had held for truths, was there vanity and leasing; and I spake aloud many things earnestly and forcibly, in the bitterness of my remembrance. Which would they had heard, who yet love vanity and seek after leasing! They would perchance have been troubled, and have vomited it up; and Thou wouldest hear them when they cried unto Thee; for by a true death in the flesh did He die for us, who now intercedeth unto Thee for us. I further read, Be angry, and sin not. And how was I moved, O my God, who had now learned to be angry at myself for things past, that I might not sin in time to come! Yea, to be justly angry; for that it was not another nature of a people of darkness which sinned for me, as they say who are not angry at themselves, and treasure up wrath against the day of wrath, and of the revelation of Thy just judgment. Nor were my good things now without, nor sought with the eyes of flesh in that earthly sun; for they that would have joy from without soon become vain, and waste themselves on the things seen and temporal, and in their famished thoughts do lick their very shadows. Oh that they were wearied out with their famine, and said, Who will show us good things? And we would say, and they hear, The light of Thy countenance is sealed upon us. For we are not that light which enlighteneth every man, but we are enlightened by Thee; that having been sometimes darkness, we may be light in Thee. Oh that they could see the eternal Internal, which having tasted, I was grieved that I could not show It them, so long as they brought me their heart in their eyes roving abroad from Thee, while they said, Who will show us good things? For there, where I was angry within myself in my chamber, where I was inwardly pricked, where I had sacrificed, slaying my old man and commencing the purpose of a new life, putting my trust in Thee,--there hadst Thou begun to grow sweet unto me, and hadst put gladness in my heart. And I cried out, as I read this outwardly, finding it inwardly. Nor would I be multiplied with worldly goods; wasting away time, and wasted by time; whereas I had in Thy eternal Simple Essence other corn, and wine, and oil. And with a loud cry of my heart I cried out in the next verse, O in peace, O for The Self-same! O what said he, I will lay me down and sleep, for who shall hinder us, when cometh to pass that saying which is written, Death is swallowed up in victory? And Thou surpassingly art the Self-same, Who art not changed; and in Thee is rest which forgetteth all toil, for there is none other with Thee, nor are we to seek those many other things, which are not what Thou art: but Thou, Lord, alone hast made me dwell in hope. I read, and kindled; nor found I what to do to those deaf and dead, of whom myself had been, a pestilent person, a bitter and a blind bawler against those writings, which are honied with the honey of heaven, and lightsome with Thine own light: and I was consumed with zeal at the enemies of this Scripture. When shall I recall all which passed in those holy-days? Yet neither have I forgotten, nor will I pass over the severity of Thy scourge, and the wonderful swiftness of Thy mercy. Thou didst then torment me with pain in my teeth; which when it had come to such height that I could not speak, it came into my heart to desire all my friends present to pray for me to Thee, the God of all manner of health. And this I wrote on wax, and gave it them to read. Presently so soon as with humble devotion we had bowed our knees, that pain went away. But what pain? or how went it away? I was affrighted, O my Lord, my God; for from infancy I had never experienced the like. And the power of Thy Nod was deeply conveyed to me, and rejoicing in faith, I praised Thy Name. And that faith suffered me not to be at ease about my past sins, which were not yet forgiven me by Thy baptism. The vintage-vacation ended, I gave notice to the Milanese to provide their scholars with another master to sell words to them; for that I had both made choice to serve Thee, and through my difficulty of breathing and pain in my chest was not equal to the Professorship. And by letters I signified to Thy Prelate, the holy man Ambrose, my former errors and present desires, begging his advice what of Thy Scriptures I had best read, to become readier and fitter for receiving so great grace. He recommended Isaiah the Prophet: I believe, because he above the rest is a more clear foreshower of the Gospel and of the calling of the Gentiles. But I, not understanding the first lesson in him, and imagining the whole to be like it, laid it by, to be resumed when better practised in our Lord's own words. Thence, when the time was come wherein I was to give in my name, we left the country and returned to Milan. It pleased Alypius also to be with me born again in Thee, being already clothed with the humility befitting Thy Sacraments; and a most valiant tamer of the body, so as, with unwonted venture, to wear the frozen ground of Italy with his bare feet. We joined with us the boy Adeodatus, born after the flesh, of my sin. Excellently hadst Thou made him. He was not quite fifteen, and in wit surpassed many grave and learned men. I confess unto Thee Thy gifts, O Lord my God, Creator of all, and abundantly able to reform our deformities: for I had no part in that boy, but the sin. For that we brought him up in Thy discipline, it was Thou, none else, had inspired us with it. I confess unto Thee Thy gifts. There is a book of ours entitled The Master; it is a dialogue between him and me. Thou knowest that all there ascribed to the person conversing with me were his ideas, in his sixteenth year. Much besides, and yet more admirable, I found in him. That talent struck awe into me. And who but Thou could be the workmaster of such wonders? Soon didst Thou take his life from the earth: and I now remember him without anxiety, fearing nothing for his childhood or youth, or his whole self. Him we joined with us, our contemporary in grace, to be brought up in Thy discipline: and we were baptised, and anxiety for our past life vanished from us. Nor was I sated in those days with the wondrous sweetness of considering the depth of Thy counsels concerning the salvation of mankind. How did I weep, in Thy Hymns and Canticles, touched to the quick by the voices of Thy sweet-attuned Church! The voices flowed into mine ears, and the Truth distilled into my heart, whence the affections of my devotion overflowed, and tears ran down, and happy was I therein. Not long had the Church of Milan begun to use this kind of consolation and exhortation, the brethren zealously joining with harmony of voice and hearts. For it was a year, or not much more, that Justina, mother to the Emperor Valentinian, a child, persecuted Thy servant Ambrose, in favour of her heresy, to which she was seduced by the Arians. The devout people kept watch in the Church, ready to die with their Bishop Thy servant. There my mother Thy handmaid, bearing a chief part of those anxieties and watchings, lived for prayer. We, yet unwarmed by the heat of Thy Spirit, still were stirred up by the sight of the amazed and disquieted city. Then it was first instituted that after the manner of the Eastern Churches, Hymns and Psalms should be sung, lest the people should wax faint through the tediousness of sorrow: and from that day to this the custom is retained, divers (yea, almost all) Thy congregations, throughout other parts of the world following herein. Then didst Thou by a vision discover to Thy forenamed Bishop where the bodies of Gervasius and Protasius the martyrs lay hid (whom Thou hadst in Thy secret treasury stored uncorrupted so many years), whence Thou mightest seasonably produce them to repress the fury of a woman, but an Empress. For when they were discovered and dug up, and with due honour translated to the Ambrosian Basilica, not only they who were vexed with unclean spirits (the devils confessing themselves) were cured, but a certain man who had for many years been blind, a citizen, and well known to the city, asking and hearing the reason of the people's confused joy, sprang forth desiring his guide to lead him thither. Led thither, he begged to be allowed to touch with his handkerchief the bier of Thy saints, whose death is precious in Thy sight. Which when he had done, and put to his eyes, they were forthwith opened. Thence did the fame spread, thence Thy praises glowed, shone; thence the mind of that enemy, though not turned to the soundness of believing, was yet turned back from her fury of persecuting. Thanks to Thee, O my God. Whence and whither hast Thou thus led my remembrance, that I should confess these things also unto Thee? which great though they be, I had passed by in forgetfulness. And yet then, when the odour of Thy ointments was so fragrant, did we not run after Thee. Therefore did I more weep among the singing of Thy Hymns, formerly sighing after Thee, and at length breathing in Thee, as far as the breath may enter into this our house of grass. Thou that makest men to dwell of one mind in one house, didst join with us Euodius also, a young man of our own city. Who being an officer of Court, was before us converted to Thee and baptised: and quitting his secular warfare, girded himself to Thine. We were together, about to dwell together in our devout purpose. We sought where we might serve Thee most usefully, and were together returning to Africa: whitherward being as far as Ostia, my mother departed this life. Much I omit, as hastening much. Receive my confessions and thanksgivings, O my God, for innumerable things whereof I am silent. But I will not omit whatsoever my soul would bring forth concerning that Thy handmaid, who brought me forth, both in the flesh, that I might be born to this temporal light, and in heart, that I might be born to Light eternal. Not her gifts, but Thine in her, would I speak of; for neither did she make nor educate herself. Thou createdst her; nor did her father and mother know what a one should come from them. And the sceptre of Thy Christ, the discipline of Thine only Son, in a Christian house, a good member of Thy Church, educated her in Thy fear. Yet for her good discipline was she wont to commend not so much her mother's diligence, as that of a certain decrepit maid-servant, who had carried her father when a child, as little ones used to be carried at the backs of elder girls. For which reason, and for her great age, and excellent conversation, was she, in that Christian family, well respected by its heads. Whence also the charge of her master's daughters was entrusted to her, to which she gave diligent heed, restraining them earnestly, when necessary, with a holy severity, and teaching them with a grave discretion. For, except at those hours wherein they were most temporately fed at their parents' table, she would not suffer them, though parched with thirst, to drink even water; preventing an evil custom, and adding this wholesome advice: "Ye drink water now, because you have not wine in your power; but when you come to be married, and be made mistresses of cellars and cupboards, you will scorn water, but the custom of drinking will abide." By this method of instruction, and the authority she had, she refrained the greediness of childhood, and moulded their very thirst to such an excellent moderation that what they should not, that they would not. And yet (as Thy handmaid told me her son) there had crept upon her a love of wine. For when (as the manner was) she, as though a sober maiden, was bidden by her parents to draw wine out of the hogshed, holding the vessel under the opening, before she poured the wine into the flagon, she sipped a little with the tip of her lips; for more her instinctive feelings refused. For this she did, not out of any desire of drink, but out of the exuberance of youth, whereby it boils over in mirthful freaks, which in youthful spirits are wont to be kept under by the gravity of their elders. And thus by adding to that little, daily littles (for whoso despiseth little things shall fall by little and little), she had fallen into such a habit as greedily to drink off her little cup brim-full almost of wine. Where was then that discreet old woman, and that her earnest countermanding? Would aught avail against a secret disease, if Thy healing hand, O Lord, watched not over us? Father, mother, and governors absent, Thou present, who createdst, who callest, who also by those set over us, workest something towards the salvation of our souls, what didst Thou then, O my God? how didst Thou cure her? how heal her? didst Thou not out of another soul bring forth a hard and a sharp taunt, like a lancet out of Thy secret store, and with one touch remove all that foul stuff? For a maid-servant with whom she used to go to the cellar, falling to words (as it happens) with her little mistress, when alone with her, taunted her with this fault, with most bitter insult, calling her wine-bibber. With which taunt she, stung to the quick, saw the foulness of her fault, and instantly condemned and forsook it. As flattering friends pervert, so reproachful enemies mostly correct. Yet not what by them Thou doest, but what themselves purposed, dost Thou repay them. For she in her anger sought to vex her young mistress, not to amend her; and did it in private, either for that the time and place of the quarrel so found them; or lest herself also should have anger, for discovering it thus late. But Thou, Lord, Governor of all in heaven and earth, who turnest to Thy purposes the deepest currents, and the ruled turbulence of the tide of times, didst by the very unhealthiness of one soul heal another; lest any, when he observes this, should ascribe it to his own power, even when another, whom he wished to be reformed, is reformed through words of his. Brought up thus modestly and soberly, and made subject rather by Thee to her parents, than by her parents to Thee, so soon as she was of marriageable age, being bestowed upon a husband, she served him as her lord; and did her diligence to win him unto Thee, preaching Thee unto him by her conversation; by which Thou ornamentedst her, making her reverently amiable, and admirable unto her husband. And she so endured the wronging of her bed as never to have any quarrel with her husband thereon. For she looked for Thy mercy upon him, that believing in Thee, he might be made chaste. But besides this, he was fervid, as in his affections, so in anger: but she had learnt not to resist an angry husband, not in deed only, but not even in word. Only when he was smoothed and tranquil, and in a temper to receive it, she would give an account of her actions, if haply he had overhastily taken offence. In a word, while many matrons, who had milder husbands, yet bore even in their faces marks of shame, would in familiar talk blame their husbands' lives, she would blame their tongues, giving them, as in jest, earnest advice: "That from the time they heard the marriage writings read to them, they should account them as indentures, whereby they were made servants; and so, remembering their condition, ought not to set themselves up against their lords." And when they, knowing what a choleric husband she endured, marvelled that it had never been heard, nor by any token perceived, that Patricius had beaten his wife, or that there had been any domestic difference between them, even for one day, and confidentially asking the reason, she taught them her practice above mentioned. Those wives who observed it found the good, and returned thanks; those who observed it not, found no relief, and suffered. Her mother-in-law also, at first by whisperings of evil servants incensed against her, she so overcame by observance and persevering endurance and meekness, that she of her own accord discovered to her son the meddling tongues whereby the domestic peace betwixt her and her daughter-in-law had been disturbed, asking him to correct them. Then, when in compliance with his mother, and for the well-ordering of the family, he had with stripes corrected those discovered, at her will who had discovered them, she promised the like reward to any who, to please her, should speak ill of her daughter-in-law to her: and none now venturing, they lived together with a remarkable sweetness of mutual kindness. This great gift also thou bestowedst, O my God, my mercy, upon that good handmaid of Thine, in whose womb Thou createdst me, that between any disagreeing and discordant parties where she was able, she showed herself such a peacemaker, that hearing on both sides most bitter things, such as swelling and indigested choler uses to break out into, when the crudities of enmities are breathed out in sour discourses to a present friend against an absent enemy, she never would disclose aught of the one unto the other, but what might tend to their reconcilement. A small good this might appear to me, did I not to my grief know numberless persons, who through some horrible and wide-spreading contagion of sin, not only disclose to persons mutually angered things said in anger, but add withal things never spoken, whereas to humane humanity, it ought to seem a light thing not to torment or increase ill will by ill words, unless one study withal by good words to quench it. Such was she, Thyself, her most inward Instructor, teaching her in the school of

hear

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

words as it were fixed in our entrails: and the examples of Thy servants, whom for black Thou hadst made bright, and for dead, alive, being piled together in the receptacle of our thoughts, kindled and burned up that our heavy torpor, that we should not sink down to the abyss; and they fired us so vehemently, that all the blasts of subtle tongues from gainsayers might only inflame us the more fiercely, not extinguish us. Nevertheless, because for Thy Name's sake which Thou hast hallowed throughout the earth, this our vow and purpose might also find some to commend it, it seemed like ostentation not to wait for the vacation now so near, but to quit beforehand a public profession, which was before the eyes of all; so that all looking on this act of mine, and observing how near was the time of vintage which I wished to anticipate, would talk much of me, as if I had desired to appear some great one. And what end had it served me, that people should repute and dispute upon my purpose, and that our good should be evil spoken of. Moreover, it had at first troubled me that in this very summer my lungs began to give way, amid too great literary labour, and to breathe deeply with difficulty, and by the pain in my chest to show that they were injured, and to refuse any full or lengthened speaking; this had troubled me, for it almost constrained me of necessity to lay down that burden of teaching, or, if I could be cured and recover, at least to intermit it. But when the full wish for leisure, that I might see how that Thou art the Lord, arose, and was fixed, in me; my God, Thou knowest, I began even to rejoice that I had this secondary, and that no feigned, excuse, which might something moderate the offence taken by those who, for their sons' sake, wished me never to have the freedom of Thy sons. Full then of such joy, I endured till that interval of time were run; it may have been some twenty days, yet they were endured manfully; endured, for the covetousness which aforetime bore a part of this heavy business, had left me, and I remained alone, and had been overwhelmed, had not patience taken its place. Perchance, some of Thy servants, my brethren, may say that I sinned in this, that with a heart fully set on Thy service, I suffered myself to sit even one hour in the chair of lies. Nor would I be contentious. But hast not Thou, O most merciful Lord, pardoned and remitted this sin also, with my other most horrible and deadly sins, in the holy water? Verecundus was worn down with care about this our blessedness, for that being held back by bonds, whereby he was most straitly bound, he saw that he should be severed from us. For himself was not yet a Christian, his wife one of the faithful; and yet hereby, more rigidly than by any other chain, was he let and hindered from the journey which we had now essayed. For he would not, he said, be a Christian on any other terms than on those he could not. However, he offered us courteously to remain at his country-house so long as we should stay there. Thou, O Lord, shalt reward him in the resurrection of the just, seeing Thou hast already given him the lot of the righteous. For although, in our absence, being now at Rome, he was seized with bodily sickness, and therein being made a Christian, and one of the faithful, he departed this life; yet hadst Thou mercy not on him only, but on us also: lest remembering the exceeding kindness of our friend towards us, yet unable to number him among Thy flock, we should be agonised with intolerable sorrow. Thanks unto Thee, our God, we are Thine: Thy suggestions and consolations tell us, Faithful in promises, Thou now requitest Verecundus for his country-house of Cassiacum, where from the fever of the world we reposed in Thee, with the eternal freshness of Thy Paradise: for that Thou hast forgiven him his sins upon earth, in that rich mountain, that mountain which yieldeth milk, Thine own mountain. He then had at that time sorrow, but Nebridius joy. For although he also, not being yet a Christian, had fallen into the pit of that most pernicious error, believing the flesh of Thy Son to be a phantom: yet emerging thence, he believed as we did; not as yet endued with any Sacraments of Thy Church, but a most ardent searcher out of truth. Whom, not long after our conversion and regeneration by Thy Baptism, being also a faithful member of the Church Catholic, and serving Thee in perfect chastity and continence amongst his people in Africa, his whole house having through him first been made Christian, didst Thou release from the flesh; and now he lives in Abraham's bosom. Whatever that be, which is signified by that bosom, there lives my Nebridius, my sweet friend, and Thy child, O Lord, adopted of a freed man: there he liveth. For what other place is there for such a soul? There he liveth, whereof he asked much of me, a poor inexperienced man. Now lays he not his ear to my mouth, but his spiritual mouth unto Thy fountain, and drinketh as much as he can receive, wisdom in proportion to his thirst, endlessly happy. Nor do I think that he is so inebriated therewith, as to forget me; seeing Thou, Lord, Whom he drinketh, art mindful of us. So were we then, comforting Verecundus, who sorrowed, as far as friendship permitted, that our conversion was of such sort; and exhorting him to become faithful, according to his measure, namely, of a married estate; and awaiting Nebridius to follow us, which, being so near, he was all but doing: and so, lo! those days rolled by at length; for long and many they seemed, for the love I bare to the easeful liberty, that I might sing to Thee, from my inmost marrow, My heart hath said unto Thee, I have sought Thy face: Thy face, Lord, will I seek. Now was the day come wherein I was in deed to be freed of my Rhetoric Professorship, whereof in thought I was already freed. And it was done. Thou didst rescue my tongue, whence Thou hadst before rescued my heart. And I blessed Thee, rejoicing; retiring with all mine to the villa. What I there did in writing, which was now enlisted in Thy service, though still, in this breathing-time as it were, panting from the school of pride, my books may witness, as well what I debated with others, as what with myself alone, before Thee: what with Nebridius, who was absent, my Epistles bear witness. And when shall I have time to rehearse all Thy great benefits towards us at that time, especially when hasting on to yet greater mercies? For my remembrance recalls me, and pleasant is it to me, O Lord, to confess to Thee, by what inward goads Thou tamedst me; and how Thou hast evened me, lowering the mountains and hills of my high imaginations, straightening my crookedness, and smoothing my rough ways; and how Thou also subduedst the brother of my heart, Alypius, unto the name of Thy Only Begotten, our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, which he would not at first vouchsafe to have inserted in our writings. For rather would he have them savour of the lofty cedars of the Schools, which the Lord hath now broken down, than of the wholesome herbs of the Church, the antidote against serpents. Oh, in what accents spake I unto Thee, my God, when I read the Psalms of David, those faithful songs, and sounds of devotion, which allow of no swelling spirit, as yet a Catechumen, and a novice in Thy real love, resting in that villa, with Alypius a Catechumen, my mother cleaving to us, in female garb with masculine faith, with the tranquillity of age, motherly love, Christian piety! Oh, what accents did I utter unto Thee in those Psalms, and how was I by them kindled towards Thee, and on fire to rehearse them, if possible, through the whole world, against the pride of mankind! And yet they are sung through the whole world, nor can any hide himself from Thy heat. With what vehement and bitter sorrow was I angered at the Manichees! and again I pitied them, for they knew not those Sacraments, those medicines, and were mad against the antidote which might have recovered them of their madness. How I would they had then been somewhere near me, and without my knowing that they were there, could have beheld my countenance, and heard my words, when I read the fourth Psalm in that time of my rest, and how that Psalm wrought upon me: When I called, the God of my righteousness heard me; in tribulation Thou enlargedst me. Have mercy upon me, O Lord, and hear my prayer. Would that what I uttered on these words, they could hear, without my knowing whether they heard, lest they should think I spake it for their sakes! Because in truth neither should I speak the same things, nor in the same way, if I perceived that they heard and saw me; nor if I spake them would they so receive them, as when I spake by and for myself before Thee, out of the natural feelings of my soul. I trembled for fear, and again kindled with hope, and with rejoicing in Thy mercy, O Father; and all issued forth both by mine eyes and voice, when Thy good Spirit turning unto us, said, O ye sons of men, how long slow of heart? why do ye love vanity, and seek after leasing? For I had loved vanity, and sought after leasing. And Thou, O Lord, hadst already magnified Thy Holy One, raising Him from the dead, and setting Him at Thy right hand, whence from on high He should send His promise, the Comforter, the Spirit of truth. And He had already sent Him, but I knew it not; He had sent Him, because He was now magnified, rising again from the dead, and ascending into heaven. For till then, the Spirit was not yet given, because Jesus was not yet glorified. And the prophet cries out, How long, slow of heart? why do ye love vanity, and seek after leasing? Know this, that the Lord hath magnified His Holy One. He cries out, How long? He cries out, Know this: and I so long, not knowing, loved vanity, and sought after leasing: and therefore I heard and trembled, because it was spoken unto such as I remembered myself to have been. For in those phantoms which I had held for truths, was there vanity and leasing; and I spake aloud many things earnestly and forcibly, in the bitterness of my remembrance. Which would they had heard, who yet love vanity and seek after leasing! They would perchance have been troubled, and have vomited it up; and Thou wouldest hear them when they cried unto Thee; for by a true death in the flesh did He die for us, who now intercedeth unto Thee for us. I further read, Be angry, and sin not. And how was I moved, O my God, who had now learned to be angry at myself for things past, that I might not sin in time to come! Yea, to be justly angry; for that it was not another nature of a people of darkness which sinned for me, as they say who are not angry at themselves, and treasure up wrath against the day of wrath, and of the revelation of Thy just judgment. Nor were my good things now without, nor sought with the eyes of flesh in that earthly sun; for they that would have joy from without soon become vain, and waste themselves on the things seen and temporal, and in their famished thoughts do lick their very shadows. Oh that they were wearied out with their famine, and said, Who will show us good things? And we would say, and they hear, The light of Thy countenance is sealed upon us. For we are not that light which enlighteneth every man, but we are enlightened by Thee; that having been sometimes darkness, we may be light in Thee. Oh that they could see the eternal Internal, which having tasted, I was grieved that I could not show It them, so long as they brought me their heart in their eyes roving abroad from Thee, while they said, Who will show us good things? For there, where I was angry within myself in my chamber, where I was inwardly pricked, where I had sacrificed, slaying my old man and commencing the purpose of a new life, putting my trust in Thee,--there hadst Thou begun to grow sweet unto me, and hadst put gladness in my heart. And I cried out, as I read this outwardly, finding it inwardly. Nor would I be multiplied with worldly goods; wasting away time, and wasted by time; whereas I had in Thy eternal Simple Essence other corn, and wine, and oil. And with a loud cry of my heart I cried out in the next verse, O in peace, O for The Self-same! O what said he, I will lay me down and sleep, for who shall hinder us, when cometh to pass that saying which is written, Death is swallowed up in victory? And Thou surpassingly art the Self-same, Who art not changed; and in Thee is rest which forgetteth all toil, for there is none other with Thee, nor are we to seek those many other things, which are not what Thou art: but Thou, Lord, alone hast made me dwell in hope. I read, and kindled; nor found I what to do to those deaf and dead, of whom myself had been, a pestilent person, a bitter and a blind bawler against those writings, which are honied with the honey of heaven, and lightsome with Thine own light: and I was consumed with zeal at the enemies of this Scripture. When shall I recall all which passed in those holy-days? Yet neither have I forgotten, nor will I pass over the severity of Thy scourge, and the wonderful swiftness of Thy mercy. Thou didst then torment me with pain in my teeth; which when it had come to such height that I could not speak, it came into my heart to desire all my friends present to pray for me to Thee, the God of all manner of health. And this I wrote on wax, and gave it them to read. Presently so soon as with humble devotion we had bowed our knees, that pain went away. But what pain? or how went it away? I was affrighted, O my Lord, my God; for from infancy I had never experienced the like. And the power of Thy Nod was deeply conveyed to me, and rejoicing in faith, I praised Thy Name. And that faith suffered me not to be at ease about my past sins, which were not yet forgiven me by Thy baptism. The vintage-vacation ended, I gave notice to the Milanese to provide their scholars with another master to sell words to them; for that I had both made choice to serve Thee, and through my difficulty of breathing and pain in my chest was not equal to the Professorship. And by letters I signified to Thy Prelate, the holy man Ambrose, my former errors and present desires, begging his advice what of Thy Scriptures I had best read, to become readier and fitter for receiving so great grace. He recommended Isaiah the Prophet: I believe, because he above the rest is a more clear foreshower of the Gospel and of the calling of the Gentiles. But I, not understanding the first lesson in him, and imagining the whole to be like it, laid it by, to be resumed when better practised in our Lord's own words. Thence, when the time was come wherein I was to give in my name, we left the country and returned to Milan. It pleased Alypius also to be with me born again in Thee, being already clothed with the humility befitting Thy Sacraments; and a most valiant tamer of the body, so as, with unwonted venture, to wear the frozen ground of Italy with his bare feet. We joined with us the boy Adeodatus, born after the flesh, of my sin. Excellently hadst Thou made him. He was not quite fifteen, and in wit surpassed many grave and learned men. I confess unto Thee Thy gifts, O Lord my God, Creator of all, and abundantly able to reform our deformities: for I had no part in that boy, but the sin. For that we brought him up in Thy discipline, it was Thou, none else, had inspired us with it. I confess unto Thee Thy gifts. There is a book of ours entitled The Master; it is a dialogue between him and me. Thou knowest that all there ascribed to the person conversing with me were his ideas, in his sixteenth year. Much besides, and yet more admirable, I found in him. That talent struck awe into me. And who but Thou could be the workmaster of such wonders? Soon didst Thou take his life from the earth: and I now remember him without anxiety, fearing nothing for his childhood or youth, or his whole self. Him we joined with us, our contemporary in grace, to be brought up in Thy discipline: and we were baptised, and anxiety for our past life vanished from us. Nor was I sated in those days with the wondrous sweetness of considering the depth of Thy counsels concerning the salvation of mankind. How did I weep, in Thy Hymns and Canticles, touched to the quick by the voices of Thy sweet-attuned Church! The voices flowed into mine ears, and the Truth distilled into my heart, whence the affections of my devotion overflowed, and tears ran down, and happy was I therein. Not long had the Church of Milan begun to use this kind of consolation and exhortation, the brethren zealously joining with harmony of voice and hearts. For it was a year, or not much more, that Justina, mother to the Emperor Valentinian, a child, persecuted Thy servant Ambrose, in favour of her heresy, to which she was seduced by the Arians. The devout people kept watch in the Church, ready to die with their Bishop Thy servant. There my mother Thy handmaid, bearing a chief part of those anxieties and watchings, lived for prayer. We, yet unwarmed by the heat of Thy Spirit, still were stirred up by the sight of the amazed and disquieted city. Then it was first instituted that after the manner of the Eastern Churches, Hymns and Psalms should be sung, lest the people should wax faint through the tediousness of sorrow: and from that day to this the custom is retained, divers (yea, almost all) Thy congregations, throughout other parts of the world following herein. Then didst Thou by a vision discover to Thy forenamed Bishop where the bodies of Gervasius and Protasius the martyrs lay hid (whom Thou hadst in Thy secret treasury stored uncorrupted so many years), whence Thou mightest seasonably produce them to repress the fury of a woman, but an Empress. For when they were discovered and dug up, and with due honour translated to the Ambrosian Basilica, not only they who were vexed with unclean spirits (the devils confessing themselves) were cured, but a certain man who had for many years been blind, a citizen, and well known to the city, asking and hearing the reason of the people's confused joy, sprang forth desiring his guide to lead him thither. Led thither, he begged to be allowed to touch with his handkerchief the bier of Thy saints, whose death is precious in Thy sight. Which when he had done, and put to his eyes, they were forthwith opened. Thence did the fame spread, thence Thy praises glowed, shone; thence the mind of that enemy, though not turned to the soundness of believing, was yet turned back from her fury of persecuting. Thanks to Thee, O my God. Whence and whither hast Thou thus led my remembrance, that I should confess these things also unto Thee? which great though they be, I had passed by in forgetfulness. And yet then, when the odour of Thy ointments was so fragrant, did we not run after Thee. Therefore did I more weep among the singing of Thy Hymns, formerly sighing after Thee, and at length breathing in Thee, as far as the breath may enter into this our house of grass. Thou that makest men to dwell of one mind in one house, didst join with us Euodius also, a young man of our own city. Who being an officer of Court, was before us converted to Thee and baptised: and quitting his secular warfare, girded himself to Thine. We were together, about to dwell together in our devout purpose. We sought where we might serve Thee most usefully, and were together returning to Africa: whitherward being as far as Ostia, my mother departed this life. Much I omit, as hastening much. Receive my confessions and thanksgivings, O my God, for innumerable things whereof I am silent. But I will not omit whatsoever my soul would bring forth concerning that Thy handmaid, who brought me forth, both in the flesh, that I might be born to this temporal light, and in heart, that I might be born to Light eternal. Not her gifts, but Thine in her, would I speak of; for neither did she make nor educate herself. Thou createdst her; nor did her father and mother know what a one should come from them. And the sceptre of Thy Christ, the discipline of Thine only Son, in a Christian house, a good member of Thy Church, educated her in Thy fear. Yet for her good discipline was she wont to commend not so much her mother's diligence, as that of a certain decrepit maid-servant, who had carried her father when a child, as little ones used to be carried at the backs of elder girls. For which reason, and for her great age, and excellent conversation, was she, in that Christian family, well respected by its heads. Whence also the charge of her master's daughters was entrusted to her, to which she gave diligent heed, restraining them earnestly, when necessary, with a holy severity, and teaching them with a grave discretion. For, except at those hours wherein they were most temporately fed at their parents' table, she would not suffer them, though parched with thirst, to drink even water; preventing an evil custom, and adding this wholesome advice: "Ye drink water now, because you have not wine in your power; but when you come to be married, and be made mistresses of cellars and cupboards, you will scorn water, but the custom of drinking will abide." By this method of instruction, and the authority she had, she refrained the greediness of childhood, and moulded their very thirst to such an excellent moderation that what they should not, that they would not. And yet (as Thy handmaid told me her son) there had crept upon her a love of wine. For when (as the manner was) she, as though a sober maiden, was bidden by her parents to draw wine out of the hogshed, holding the vessel under the opening, before she poured the wine into the flagon, she sipped a little with the tip of her lips; for more her instinctive feelings refused. For this she did, not out of any desire of drink, but out of the exuberance of youth, whereby it boils over in mirthful freaks, which in youthful spirits are wont to be kept under by the gravity of their elders. And thus by adding to that little, daily littles (for whoso despiseth little things shall fall by little and little), she had fallen into such a habit as greedily to drink off her little cup brim-full almost of wine. Where was then that discreet old woman, and that her earnest countermanding? Would aught avail against a secret disease, if Thy healing hand, O Lord, watched not over us? Father, mother, and governors absent, Thou present, who createdst, who callest, who also by those set over us, workest something towards the salvation of our souls, what didst Thou then, O my God? how didst Thou cure her? how heal her? didst Thou not out of another soul bring forth a hard and a sharp taunt, like a lancet out of Thy secret store, and with one touch remove all that foul stuff? For a maid-servant with whom she used to go to the cellar, falling to words (as it happens) with her little mistress, when alone with her, taunted her with this fault, with most bitter insult, calling her wine-bibber. With which taunt she, stung to the quick, saw the foulness of her fault, and instantly condemned and forsook it. As flattering friends pervert, so reproachful enemies mostly correct. Yet not what by them Thou doest, but what themselves purposed, dost Thou repay them. For she in her anger sought to vex her young mistress, not to amend her; and did it in private, either for that the time and place of the quarrel so found them; or lest herself also should have anger, for discovering it thus late. But Thou, Lord, Governor of all in heaven and earth, who turnest to Thy purposes the deepest currents, and the ruled turbulence of the tide of times, didst by the very unhealthiness of one soul heal another; lest any, when he observes this, should ascribe it to his own power, even when another, whom he wished to be reformed, is reformed through words of his. Brought up thus modestly and soberly, and made subject rather by Thee to her parents, than by her parents to Thee, so soon as she was of marriageable age, being bestowed upon a husband, she served him as her lord; and did her diligence to win him unto Thee, preaching Thee unto him by her conversation; by which Thou ornamentedst her, making her reverently amiable, and admirable unto her husband. And she so endured the wronging of her bed as never to have any quarrel with her husband thereon. For she looked for Thy mercy upon him, that believing in Thee, he might be made chaste. But besides this, he was fervid, as in his affections, so in anger: but she had learnt not to resist an angry husband, not in deed only, but not even in word. Only when he was smoothed and tranquil, and in a temper to receive it, she would give an account of her actions, if haply he had overhastily taken offence. In a word, while many matrons, who had milder husbands, yet bore even in their faces marks of shame, would in familiar talk blame their husbands' lives, she would blame their tongues, giving them, as in jest, earnest advice: "That from the time they heard the marriage writings read to them, they should account them as indentures, whereby they were made servants; and so, remembering their condition, ought not to set themselves up against their lords." And when they, knowing what a choleric husband she endured, marvelled that it had never been heard, nor by any token perceived, that Patricius had beaten his wife, or that there had been any domestic difference between them, even for one day, and confidentially asking the reason, she taught them her practice above mentioned. Those wives who observed it found the good, and returned thanks; those who observed it not, found no relief, and suffered. Her mother-in-law also, at first by whisperings of evil servants incensed against her, she so overcame by observance and persevering endurance and meekness, that she of her own accord discovered to her son the meddling tongues whereby the domestic peace betwixt her and her daughter-in-law had been disturbed, asking him to correct them. Then, when in compliance with his mother, and for the well-ordering of the family, he had with stripes corrected those discovered, at her will who had discovered them, she promised the like reward to any who, to please her, should speak ill of her daughter-in-law to her: and none now venturing, they lived together with a remarkable sweetness of mutual kindness. This great gift also thou bestowedst, O my God, my mercy, upon that good handmaid of Thine, in whose womb Thou createdst me, that between any disagreeing and discordant parties where she was able, she showed herself such a peacemaker, that hearing on both sides most bitter things, such as swelling and indigested choler uses to break out into, when the crudities of enmities are breathed out in sour discourses to a present friend against an absent enemy, she never would disclose aught of the one unto the other, but what might tend to their reconcilement. A small good this might appear to me, did I not to my grief know numberless persons, who through some horrible and wide-spreading contagion of sin, not only disclose to persons mutually angered things said in anger, but add withal things never spoken, whereas to humane humanity, it ought to seem a light thing not to torment or increase ill will by ill words, unless one study withal by good words to quench it. Such was she, Thyself, her most inward Instructor, teaching her in the school of

seek

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

words as it were fixed in our entrails: and the examples of Thy servants, whom for black Thou hadst made bright, and for dead, alive, being piled together in the receptacle of our thoughts, kindled and burned up that our heavy torpor, that we should not sink down to the abyss; and they fired us so vehemently, that all the blasts of subtle tongues from gainsayers might only inflame us the more fiercely, not extinguish us. Nevertheless, because for Thy Name's sake which Thou hast hallowed throughout the earth, this our vow and purpose might also find some to commend it, it seemed like ostentation not to wait for the vacation now so near, but to quit beforehand a public profession, which was before the eyes of all; so that all looking on this act of mine, and observing how near was the time of vintage which I wished to anticipate, would talk much of me, as if I had desired to appear some great one. And what end had it served me, that people should repute and dispute upon my purpose, and that our good should be evil spoken of. Moreover, it had at first troubled me that in this very summer my lungs began to give way, amid too great literary labour, and to breathe deeply with difficulty, and by the pain in my chest to show that they were injured, and to refuse any full or lengthened speaking; this had troubled me, for it almost constrained me of necessity to lay down that burden of teaching, or, if I could be cured and recover, at least to intermit it. But when the full wish for leisure, that I might see how that Thou art the Lord, arose, and was fixed, in me; my God, Thou knowest, I began even to rejoice that I had this secondary, and that no feigned, excuse, which might something moderate the offence taken by those who, for their sons' sake, wished me never to have the freedom of Thy sons. Full then of such joy, I endured till that interval of time were run; it may have been some twenty days, yet they were endured manfully; endured, for the covetousness which aforetime bore a part of this heavy business, had left me, and I remained alone, and had been overwhelmed, had not patience taken its place. Perchance, some of Thy servants, my brethren, may say that I sinned in this, that with a heart fully set on Thy service, I suffered myself to sit even one hour in the chair of lies. Nor would I be contentious. But hast not Thou, O most merciful Lord, pardoned and remitted this sin also, with my other most horrible and deadly sins, in the holy water? Verecundus was worn down with care about this our blessedness, for that being held back by bonds, whereby he was most straitly bound, he saw that he should be severed from us. For himself was not yet a Christian, his wife one of the faithful; and yet hereby, more rigidly than by any other chain, was he let and hindered from the journey which we had now essayed. For he would not, he said, be a Christian on any other terms than on those he could not. However, he offered us courteously to remain at his country-house so long as we should stay there. Thou, O Lord, shalt reward him in the resurrection of the just, seeing Thou hast already given him the lot of the righteous. For although, in our absence, being now at Rome, he was seized with bodily sickness, and therein being made a Christian, and one of the faithful, he departed this life; yet hadst Thou mercy not on him only, but on us also: lest remembering the exceeding kindness of our friend towards us, yet unable to number him among Thy flock, we should be agonised with intolerable sorrow. Thanks unto Thee, our God, we are Thine: Thy suggestions and consolations tell us, Faithful in promises, Thou now requitest Verecundus for his country-house of Cassiacum, where from the fever of the world we reposed in Thee, with the eternal freshness of Thy Paradise: for that Thou hast forgiven him his sins upon earth, in that rich mountain, that mountain which yieldeth milk, Thine own mountain. He then had at that time sorrow, but Nebridius joy. For although he also, not being yet a Christian, had fallen into the pit of that most pernicious error, believing the flesh of Thy Son to be a phantom: yet emerging thence, he believed as we did; not as yet endued with any Sacraments of Thy Church, but a most ardent searcher out of truth. Whom, not long after our conversion and regeneration by Thy Baptism, being also a faithful member of the Church Catholic, and serving Thee in perfect chastity and continence amongst his people in Africa, his whole house having through him first been made Christian, didst Thou release from the flesh; and now he lives in Abraham's bosom. Whatever that be, which is signified by that bosom, there lives my Nebridius, my sweet friend, and Thy child, O Lord, adopted of a freed man: there he liveth. For what other place is there for such a soul? There he liveth, whereof he asked much of me, a poor inexperienced man. Now lays he not his ear to my mouth, but his spiritual mouth unto Thy fountain, and drinketh as much as he can receive, wisdom in proportion to his thirst, endlessly happy. Nor do I think that he is so inebriated therewith, as to forget me; seeing Thou, Lord, Whom he drinketh, art mindful of us. So were we then, comforting Verecundus, who sorrowed, as far as friendship permitted, that our conversion was of such sort; and exhorting him to become faithful, according to his measure, namely, of a married estate; and awaiting Nebridius to follow us, which, being so near, he was all but doing: and so, lo! those days rolled by at length; for long and many they seemed, for the love I bare to the easeful liberty, that I might sing to Thee, from my inmost marrow, My heart hath said unto Thee, I have sought Thy face: Thy face, Lord, will I seek. Now was the day come wherein I was in deed to be freed of my Rhetoric Professorship, whereof in thought I was already freed. And it was done. Thou didst rescue my tongue, whence Thou hadst before rescued my heart. And I blessed Thee, rejoicing; retiring with all mine to the villa. What I there did in writing, which was now enlisted in Thy service, though still, in this breathing-time as it were, panting from the school of pride, my books may witness, as well what I debated with others, as what with myself alone, before Thee: what with Nebridius, who was absent, my Epistles bear witness. And when shall I have time to rehearse all Thy great benefits towards us at that time, especially when hasting on to yet greater mercies? For my remembrance recalls me, and pleasant is it to me, O Lord, to confess to Thee, by what inward goads Thou tamedst me; and how Thou hast evened me, lowering the mountains and hills of my high imaginations, straightening my crookedness, and smoothing my rough ways; and how Thou also subduedst the brother of my heart, Alypius, unto the name of Thy Only Begotten, our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, which he would not at first vouchsafe to have inserted in our writings. For rather would he have them savour of the lofty cedars of the Schools, which the Lord hath now broken down, than of the wholesome herbs of the Church, the antidote against serpents. Oh, in what accents spake I unto Thee, my God, when I read the Psalms of David, those faithful songs, and sounds of devotion, which allow of no swelling spirit, as yet a Catechumen, and a novice in Thy real love, resting in that villa, with Alypius a Catechumen, my mother cleaving to us, in female garb with masculine faith, with the tranquillity of age, motherly love, Christian piety! Oh, what accents did I utter unto Thee in those Psalms, and how was I by them kindled towards Thee, and on fire to rehearse them, if possible, through the whole world, against the pride of mankind! And yet they are sung through the whole world, nor can any hide himself from Thy heat. With what vehement and bitter sorrow was I angered at the Manichees! and again I pitied them, for they knew not those Sacraments, those medicines, and were mad against the antidote which might have recovered them of their madness. How I would they had then been somewhere near me, and without my knowing that they were there, could have beheld my countenance, and heard my words, when I read the fourth Psalm in that time of my rest, and how that Psalm wrought upon me: When I called, the God of my righteousness heard me; in tribulation Thou enlargedst me. Have mercy upon me, O Lord, and hear my prayer. Would that what I uttered on these words, they could hear, without my knowing whether they heard, lest they should think I spake it for their sakes! Because in truth neither should I speak the same things, nor in the same way, if I perceived that they heard and saw me; nor if I spake them would they so receive them, as when I spake by and for myself before Thee, out of the natural feelings of my soul. I trembled for fear, and again kindled with hope, and with rejoicing in Thy mercy, O Father; and all issued forth both by mine eyes and voice, when Thy good Spirit turning unto us, said, O ye sons of men, how long slow of heart? why do ye love vanity, and seek after leasing? For I had loved vanity, and sought after leasing. And Thou, O Lord, hadst already magnified Thy Holy One, raising Him from the dead, and setting Him at Thy right hand, whence from on high He should send His promise, the Comforter, the Spirit of truth. And He had already sent Him, but I knew it not; He had sent Him, because He was now magnified, rising again from the dead, and ascending into heaven. For till then, the Spirit was not yet given, because Jesus was not yet glorified. And the prophet cries out, How long, slow of heart? why do ye love vanity, and seek after leasing? Know this, that the Lord hath magnified His Holy One. He cries out, How long? He cries out, Know this: and I so long, not knowing, loved vanity, and sought after leasing: and therefore I heard and trembled, because it was spoken unto such as I remembered myself to have been. For in those phantoms which I had held for truths, was there vanity and leasing; and I spake aloud many things earnestly and forcibly, in the bitterness of my remembrance. Which would they had heard, who yet love vanity and seek after leasing! They would perchance have been troubled, and have vomited it up; and Thou wouldest hear them when they cried unto Thee; for by a true death in the flesh did He die for us, who now intercedeth unto Thee for us. I further read, Be angry, and sin not. And how was I moved, O my God, who had now learned to be angry at myself for things past, that I might not sin in time to come! Yea, to be justly angry; for that it was not another nature of a people of darkness which sinned for me, as they say who are not angry at themselves, and treasure up wrath against the day of wrath, and of the revelation of Thy just judgment. Nor were my good things now without, nor sought with the eyes of flesh in that earthly sun; for they that would have joy from without soon become vain, and waste themselves on the things seen and temporal, and in their famished thoughts do lick their very shadows. Oh that they were wearied out with their famine, and said, Who will show us good things? And we would say, and they hear, The light of Thy countenance is sealed upon us. For we are not that light which enlighteneth every man, but we are enlightened by Thee; that having been sometimes darkness, we may be light in Thee. Oh that they could see the eternal Internal, which having tasted, I was grieved that I could not show It them, so long as they brought me their heart in their eyes roving abroad from Thee, while they said, Who will show us good things? For there, where I was angry within myself in my chamber, where I was inwardly pricked, where I had sacrificed, slaying my old man and commencing the purpose of a new life, putting my trust in Thee,--there hadst Thou begun to grow sweet unto me, and hadst put gladness in my heart. And I cried out, as I read this outwardly, finding it inwardly. Nor would I be multiplied with worldly goods; wasting away time, and wasted by time; whereas I had in Thy eternal Simple Essence other corn, and wine, and oil. And with a loud cry of my heart I cried out in the next verse, O in peace, O for The Self-same! O what said he, I will lay me down and sleep, for who shall hinder us, when cometh to pass that saying which is written, Death is swallowed up in victory? And Thou surpassingly art the Self-same, Who art not changed; and in Thee is rest which forgetteth all toil, for there is none other with Thee, nor are we to seek those many other things, which are not what Thou art: but Thou, Lord, alone hast made me dwell in hope. I read, and kindled; nor found I what to do to those deaf and dead, of whom myself had been, a pestilent person, a bitter and a blind bawler against those writings, which are honied with the honey of heaven, and lightsome with Thine own light: and I was consumed with zeal at the enemies of this Scripture. When shall I recall all which passed in those holy-days? Yet neither have I forgotten, nor will I pass over the severity of Thy scourge, and the wonderful swiftness of Thy mercy. Thou didst then torment me with pain in my teeth; which when it had come to such height that I could not speak, it came into my heart to desire all my friends present to pray for me to Thee, the God of all manner of health. And this I wrote on wax, and gave it them to read. Presently so soon as with humble devotion we had bowed our knees, that pain went away. But what pain? or how went it away? I was affrighted, O my Lord, my God; for from infancy I had never experienced the like. And the power of Thy Nod was deeply conveyed to me, and rejoicing in faith, I praised Thy Name. And that faith suffered me not to be at ease about my past sins, which were not yet forgiven me by Thy baptism. The vintage-vacation ended, I gave notice to the Milanese to provide their scholars with another master to sell words to them; for that I had both made choice to serve Thee, and through my difficulty of breathing and pain in my chest was not equal to the Professorship. And by letters I signified to Thy Prelate, the holy man Ambrose, my former errors and present desires, begging his advice what of Thy Scriptures I had best read, to become readier and fitter for receiving so great grace. He recommended Isaiah the Prophet: I believe, because he above the rest is a more clear foreshower of the Gospel and of the calling of the Gentiles. But I, not understanding the first lesson in him, and imagining the whole to be like it, laid it by, to be resumed when better practised in our Lord's own words. Thence, when the time was come wherein I was to give in my name, we left the country and returned to Milan. It pleased Alypius also to be with me born again in Thee, being already clothed with the humility befitting Thy Sacraments; and a most valiant tamer of the body, so as, with unwonted venture, to wear the frozen ground of Italy with his bare feet. We joined with us the boy Adeodatus, born after the flesh, of my sin. Excellently hadst Thou made him. He was not quite fifteen, and in wit surpassed many grave and learned men. I confess unto Thee Thy gifts, O Lord my God, Creator of all, and abundantly able to reform our deformities: for I had no part in that boy, but the sin. For that we brought him up in Thy discipline, it was Thou, none else, had inspired us with it. I confess unto Thee Thy gifts. There is a book of ours entitled The Master; it is a dialogue between him and me. Thou knowest that all there ascribed to the person conversing with me were his ideas, in his sixteenth year. Much besides, and yet more admirable, I found in him. That talent struck awe into me. And who but Thou could be the workmaster of such wonders? Soon didst Thou take his life from the earth: and I now remember him without anxiety, fearing nothing for his childhood or youth, or his whole self. Him we joined with us, our contemporary in grace, to be brought up in Thy discipline: and we were baptised, and anxiety for our past life vanished from us. Nor was I sated in those days with the wondrous sweetness of considering the depth of Thy counsels concerning the salvation of mankind. How did I weep, in Thy Hymns and Canticles, touched to the quick by the voices of Thy sweet-attuned Church! The voices flowed into mine ears, and the Truth distilled into my heart, whence the affections of my devotion overflowed, and tears ran down, and happy was I therein. Not long had the Church of Milan begun to use this kind of consolation and exhortation, the brethren zealously joining with harmony of voice and hearts. For it was a year, or not much more, that Justina, mother to the Emperor Valentinian, a child, persecuted Thy servant Ambrose, in favour of her heresy, to which she was seduced by the Arians. The devout people kept watch in the Church, ready to die with their Bishop Thy servant. There my mother Thy handmaid, bearing a chief part of those anxieties and watchings, lived for prayer. We, yet unwarmed by the heat of Thy Spirit, still were stirred up by the sight of the amazed and disquieted city. Then it was first instituted that after the manner of the Eastern Churches, Hymns and Psalms should be sung, lest the people should wax faint through the tediousness of sorrow: and from that day to this the custom is retained, divers (yea, almost all) Thy congregations, throughout other parts of the world following herein. Then didst Thou by a vision discover to Thy forenamed Bishop where the bodies of Gervasius and Protasius the martyrs lay hid (whom Thou hadst in Thy secret treasury stored uncorrupted so many years), whence Thou mightest seasonably produce them to repress the fury of a woman, but an Empress. For when they were discovered and dug up, and with due honour translated to the Ambrosian Basilica, not only they who were vexed with unclean spirits (the devils confessing themselves) were cured, but a certain man who had for many years been blind, a citizen, and well known to the city, asking and hearing the reason of the people's confused joy, sprang forth desiring his guide to lead him thither. Led thither, he begged to be allowed to touch with his handkerchief the bier of Thy saints, whose death is precious in Thy sight. Which when he had done, and put to his eyes, they were forthwith opened. Thence did the fame spread, thence Thy praises glowed, shone; thence the mind of that enemy, though not turned to the soundness of believing, was yet turned back from her fury of persecuting. Thanks to Thee, O my God. Whence and whither hast Thou thus led my remembrance, that I should confess these things also unto Thee? which great though they be, I had passed by in forgetfulness. And yet then, when the odour of Thy ointments was so fragrant, did we not run after Thee. Therefore did I more weep among the singing of Thy Hymns, formerly sighing after Thee, and at length breathing in Thee, as far as the breath may enter into this our house of grass. Thou that makest men to dwell of one mind in one house, didst join with us Euodius also, a young man of our own city. Who being an officer of Court, was before us converted to Thee and baptised: and quitting his secular warfare, girded himself to Thine. We were together, about to dwell together in our devout purpose. We sought where we might serve Thee most usefully, and were together returning to Africa: whitherward being as far as Ostia, my mother departed this life. Much I omit, as hastening much. Receive my confessions and thanksgivings, O my God, for innumerable things whereof I am silent. But I will not omit whatsoever my soul would bring forth concerning that Thy handmaid, who brought me forth, both in the flesh, that I might be born to this temporal light, and in heart, that I might be born to Light eternal. Not her gifts, but Thine in her, would I speak of; for neither did she make nor educate herself. Thou createdst her; nor did her father and mother know what a one should come from them. And the sceptre of Thy Christ, the discipline of Thine only Son, in a Christian house, a good member of Thy Church, educated her in Thy fear. Yet for her good discipline was she wont to commend not so much her mother's diligence, as that of a certain decrepit maid-servant, who had carried her father when a child, as little ones used to be carried at the backs of elder girls. For which reason, and for her great age, and excellent conversation, was she, in that Christian family, well respected by its heads. Whence also the charge of her master's daughters was entrusted to her, to which she gave diligent heed, restraining them earnestly, when necessary, with a holy severity, and teaching them with a grave discretion. For, except at those hours wherein they were most temporately fed at their parents' table, she would not suffer them, though parched with thirst, to drink even water; preventing an evil custom, and adding this wholesome advice: "Ye drink water now, because you have not wine in your power; but when you come to be married, and be made mistresses of cellars and cupboards, you will scorn water, but the custom of drinking will abide." By this method of instruction, and the authority she had, she refrained the greediness of childhood, and moulded their very thirst to such an excellent moderation that what they should not, that they would not. And yet (as Thy handmaid told me her son) there had crept upon her a love of wine. For when (as the manner was) she, as though a sober maiden, was bidden by her parents to draw wine out of the hogshed, holding the vessel under the opening, before she poured the wine into the flagon, she sipped a little with the tip of her lips; for more her instinctive feelings refused. For this she did, not out of any desire of drink, but out of the exuberance of youth, whereby it boils over in mirthful freaks, which in youthful spirits are wont to be kept under by the gravity of their elders. And thus by adding to that little, daily littles (for whoso despiseth little things shall fall by little and little), she had fallen into such a habit as greedily to drink off her little cup brim-full almost of wine. Where was then that discreet old woman, and that her earnest countermanding? Would aught avail against a secret disease, if Thy healing hand, O Lord, watched not over us? Father, mother, and governors absent, Thou present, who createdst, who callest, who also by those set over us, workest something towards the salvation of our souls, what didst Thou then, O my God? how didst Thou cure her? how heal her? didst Thou not out of another soul bring forth a hard and a sharp taunt, like a lancet out of Thy secret store, and with one touch remove all that foul stuff? For a maid-servant with whom she used to go to the cellar, falling to words (as it happens) with her little mistress, when alone with her, taunted her with this fault, with most bitter insult, calling her wine-bibber. With which taunt she, stung to the quick, saw the foulness of her fault, and instantly condemned and forsook it. As flattering friends pervert, so reproachful enemies mostly correct. Yet not what by them Thou doest, but what themselves purposed, dost Thou repay them. For she in her anger sought to vex her young mistress, not to amend her; and did it in private, either for that the time and place of the quarrel so found them; or lest herself also should have anger, for discovering it thus late. But Thou, Lord, Governor of all in heaven and earth, who turnest to Thy purposes the deepest currents, and the ruled turbulence of the tide of times, didst by the very unhealthiness of one soul heal another; lest any, when he observes this, should ascribe it to his own power, even when another, whom he wished to be reformed, is reformed through words of his. Brought up thus modestly and soberly, and made subject rather by Thee to her parents, than by her parents to Thee, so soon as she was of marriageable age, being bestowed upon a husband, she served him as her lord; and did her diligence to win him unto Thee, preaching Thee unto him by her conversation; by which Thou ornamentedst her, making her reverently amiable, and admirable unto her husband. And she so endured the wronging of her bed as never to have any quarrel with her husband thereon. For she looked for Thy mercy upon him, that believing in Thee, he might be made chaste. But besides this, he was fervid, as in his affections, so in anger: but she had learnt not to resist an angry husband, not in deed only, but not even in word. Only when he was smoothed and tranquil, and in a temper to receive it, she would give an account of her actions, if haply he had overhastily taken offence. In a word, while many matrons, who had milder husbands, yet bore even in their faces marks of shame, would in familiar talk blame their husbands' lives, she would blame their tongues, giving them, as in jest, earnest advice: "That from the time they heard the marriage writings read to them, they should account them as indentures, whereby they were made servants; and so, remembering their condition, ought not to set themselves up against their lords." And when they, knowing what a choleric husband she endured, marvelled that it had never been heard, nor by any token perceived, that Patricius had beaten his wife, or that there had been any domestic difference between them, even for one day, and confidentially asking the reason, she taught them her practice above mentioned. Those wives who observed it found the good, and returned thanks; those who observed it not, found no relief, and suffered. Her mother-in-law also, at first by whisperings of evil servants incensed against her, she so overcame by observance and persevering endurance and meekness, that she of her own accord discovered to her son the meddling tongues whereby the domestic peace betwixt her and her daughter-in-law had been disturbed, asking him to correct them. Then, when in compliance with his mother, and for the well-ordering of the family, he had with stripes corrected those discovered, at her will who had discovered them, she promised the like reward to any who, to please her, should speak ill of her daughter-in-law to her: and none now venturing, they lived together with a remarkable sweetness of mutual kindness. This great gift also thou bestowedst, O my God, my mercy, upon that good handmaid of Thine, in whose womb Thou createdst me, that between any disagreeing and discordant parties where she was able, she showed herself such a peacemaker, that hearing on both sides most bitter things, such as swelling and indigested choler uses to break out into, when the crudities of enmities are breathed out in sour discourses to a present friend against an absent enemy, she never would disclose aught of the one unto the other, but what might tend to their reconcilement. A small good this might appear to me, did I not to my grief know numberless persons, who through some horrible and wide-spreading contagion of sin, not only disclose to persons mutually angered things said in anger, but add withal things never spoken, whereas to humane humanity, it ought to seem a light thing not to torment or increase ill will by ill words, unless one study withal by good words to quench it. Such was she, Thyself, her most inward Instructor, teaching her in the school of

safety

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

words as it were fixed in our entrails: and the examples of Thy servants, whom for black Thou hadst made bright, and for dead, alive, being piled together in the receptacle of our thoughts, kindled and burned up that our heavy torpor, that we should not sink down to the abyss; and they fired us so vehemently, that all the blasts of subtle tongues from gainsayers might only inflame us the more fiercely, not extinguish us. Nevertheless, because for Thy Name's sake which Thou hast hallowed throughout the earth, this our vow and purpose might also find some to commend it, it seemed like ostentation not to wait for the vacation now so near, but to quit beforehand a public profession, which was before the eyes of all; so that all looking on this act of mine, and observing how near was the time of vintage which I wished to anticipate, would talk much of me, as if I had desired to appear some great one. And what end had it served me, that people should repute and dispute upon my purpose, and that our good should be evil spoken of. Moreover, it had at first troubled me that in this very summer my lungs began to give way, amid too great literary labour, and to breathe deeply with difficulty, and by the pain in my chest to show that they were injured, and to refuse any full or lengthened speaking; this had troubled me, for it almost constrained me of necessity to lay down that burden of teaching, or, if I could be cured and recover, at least to intermit it. But when the full wish for leisure, that I might see how that Thou art the Lord, arose, and was fixed, in me; my God, Thou knowest, I began even to rejoice that I had this secondary, and that no feigned, excuse, which might something moderate the offence taken by those who, for their sons' sake, wished me never to have the freedom of Thy sons. Full then of such joy, I endured till that interval of time were run; it may have been some twenty days, yet they were endured manfully; endured, for the covetousness which aforetime bore a part of this heavy business, had left me, and I remained alone, and had been overwhelmed, had not patience taken its place. Perchance, some of Thy servants, my brethren, may say that I sinned in this, that with a heart fully set on Thy service, I suffered myself to sit even one hour in the chair of lies. Nor would I be contentious. But hast not Thou, O most merciful Lord, pardoned and remitted this sin also, with my other most horrible and deadly sins, in the holy water? Verecundus was worn down with care about this our blessedness, for that being held back by bonds, whereby he was most straitly bound, he saw that he should be severed from us. For himself was not yet a Christian, his wife one of the faithful; and yet hereby, more rigidly than by any other chain, was he let and hindered from the journey which we had now essayed. For he would not, he said, be a Christian on any other terms than on those he could not. However, he offered us courteously to remain at his country-house so long as we should stay there. Thou, O Lord, shalt reward him in the resurrection of the just, seeing Thou hast already given him the lot of the righteous. For although, in our absence, being now at Rome, he was seized with bodily sickness, and therein being made a Christian, and one of the faithful, he departed this life; yet hadst Thou mercy not on him only, but on us also: lest remembering the exceeding kindness of our friend towards us, yet unable to number him among Thy flock, we should be agonised with intolerable sorrow. Thanks unto Thee, our God, we are Thine: Thy suggestions and consolations tell us, Faithful in promises, Thou now requitest Verecundus for his country-house of Cassiacum, where from the fever of the world we reposed in Thee, with the eternal freshness of Thy Paradise: for that Thou hast forgiven him his sins upon earth, in that rich mountain, that mountain which yieldeth milk, Thine own mountain. He then had at that time sorrow, but Nebridius joy. For although he also, not being yet a Christian, had fallen into the pit of that most pernicious error, believing the flesh of Thy Son to be a phantom: yet emerging thence, he believed as we did; not as yet endued with any Sacraments of Thy Church, but a most ardent searcher out of truth. Whom, not long after our conversion and regeneration by Thy Baptism, being also a faithful member of the Church Catholic, and serving Thee in perfect chastity and continence amongst his people in Africa, his whole house having through him first been made Christian, didst Thou release from the flesh; and now he lives in Abraham's bosom. Whatever that be, which is signified by that bosom, there lives my Nebridius, my sweet friend, and Thy child, O Lord, adopted of a freed man: there he liveth. For what other place is there for such a soul? There he liveth, whereof he asked much of me, a poor inexperienced man. Now lays he not his ear to my mouth, but his spiritual mouth unto Thy fountain, and drinketh as much as he can receive, wisdom in proportion to his thirst, endlessly happy. Nor do I think that he is so inebriated therewith, as to forget me; seeing Thou, Lord, Whom he drinketh, art mindful of us. So were we then, comforting Verecundus, who sorrowed, as far as friendship permitted, that our conversion was of such sort; and exhorting him to become faithful, according to his measure, namely, of a married estate; and awaiting Nebridius to follow us, which, being so near, he was all but doing: and so, lo! those days rolled by at length; for long and many they seemed, for the love I bare to the easeful liberty, that I might sing to Thee, from my inmost marrow, My heart hath said unto Thee, I have sought Thy face: Thy face, Lord, will I seek. Now was the day come wherein I was in deed to be freed of my Rhetoric Professorship, whereof in thought I was already freed. And it was done. Thou didst rescue my tongue, whence Thou hadst before rescued my heart. And I blessed Thee, rejoicing; retiring with all mine to the villa. What I there did in writing, which was now enlisted in Thy service, though still, in this breathing-time as it were, panting from the school of pride, my books may witness, as well what I debated with others, as what with myself alone, before Thee: what with Nebridius, who was absent, my Epistles bear witness. And when shall I have time to rehearse all Thy great benefits towards us at that time, especially when hasting on to yet greater mercies? For my remembrance recalls me, and pleasant is it to me, O Lord, to confess to Thee, by what inward goads Thou tamedst me; and how Thou hast evened me, lowering the mountains and hills of my high imaginations, straightening my crookedness, and smoothing my rough ways; and how Thou also subduedst the brother of my heart, Alypius, unto the name of Thy Only Begotten, our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, which he would not at first vouchsafe to have inserted in our writings. For rather would he have them savour of the lofty cedars of the Schools, which the Lord hath now broken down, than of the wholesome herbs of the Church, the antidote against serpents. Oh, in what accents spake I unto Thee, my God, when I read the Psalms of David, those faithful songs, and sounds of devotion, which allow of no swelling spirit, as yet a Catechumen, and a novice in Thy real love, resting in that villa, with Alypius a Catechumen, my mother cleaving to us, in female garb with masculine faith, with the tranquillity of age, motherly love, Christian piety! Oh, what accents did I utter unto Thee in those Psalms, and how was I by them kindled towards Thee, and on fire to rehearse them, if possible, through the whole world, against the pride of mankind! And yet they are sung through the whole world, nor can any hide himself from Thy heat. With what vehement and bitter sorrow was I angered at the Manichees! and again I pitied them, for they knew not those Sacraments, those medicines, and were mad against the antidote which might have recovered them of their madness. How I would they had then been somewhere near me, and without my knowing that they were there, could have beheld my countenance, and heard my words, when I read the fourth Psalm in that time of my rest, and how that Psalm wrought upon me: When I called, the God of my righteousness heard me; in tribulation Thou enlargedst me. Have mercy upon me, O Lord, and hear my prayer. Would that what I uttered on these words, they could hear, without my knowing whether they heard, lest they should think I spake it for their sakes! Because in truth neither should I speak the same things, nor in the same way, if I perceived that they heard and saw me; nor if I spake them would they so receive them, as when I spake by and for myself before Thee, out of the natural feelings of my soul. I trembled for fear, and again kindled with hope, and with rejoicing in Thy mercy, O Father; and all issued forth both by mine eyes and voice, when Thy good Spirit turning unto us, said, O ye sons of men, how long slow of heart? why do ye love vanity, and seek after leasing? For I had loved vanity, and sought after leasing. And Thou, O Lord, hadst already magnified Thy Holy One, raising Him from the dead, and setting Him at Thy right hand, whence from on high He should send His promise, the Comforter, the Spirit of truth. And He had already sent Him, but I knew it not; He had sent Him, because He was now magnified, rising again from the dead, and ascending into heaven. For till then, the Spirit was not yet given, because Jesus was not yet glorified. And the prophet cries out, How long, slow of heart? why do ye love vanity, and seek after leasing? Know this, that the Lord hath magnified His Holy One. He cries out, How long? He cries out, Know this: and I so long, not knowing, loved vanity, and sought after leasing: and therefore I heard and trembled, because it was spoken unto such as I remembered myself to have been. For in those phantoms which I had held for truths, was there vanity and leasing; and I spake aloud many things earnestly and forcibly, in the bitterness of my remembrance. Which would they had heard, who yet love vanity and seek after leasing! They would perchance have been troubled, and have vomited it up; and Thou wouldest hear them when they cried unto Thee; for by a true death in the flesh did He die for us, who now intercedeth unto Thee for us. I further read, Be angry, and sin not. And how was I moved, O my God, who had now learned to be angry at myself for things past, that I might not sin in time to come! Yea, to be justly angry; for that it was not another nature of a people of darkness which sinned for me, as they say who are not angry at themselves, and treasure up wrath against the day of wrath, and of the revelation of Thy just judgment. Nor were my good things now without, nor sought with the eyes of flesh in that earthly sun; for they that would have joy from without soon become vain, and waste themselves on the things seen and temporal, and in their famished thoughts do lick their very shadows. Oh that they were wearied out with their famine, and said, Who will show us good things? And we would say, and they hear, The light of Thy countenance is sealed upon us. For we are not that light which enlighteneth every man, but we are enlightened by Thee; that having been sometimes darkness, we may be light in Thee. Oh that they could see the eternal Internal, which having tasted, I was grieved that I could not show It them, so long as they brought me their heart in their eyes roving abroad from Thee, while they said, Who will show us good things? For there, where I was angry within myself in my chamber, where I was inwardly pricked, where I had sacrificed, slaying my old man and commencing the purpose of a new life, putting my trust in Thee,--there hadst Thou begun to grow sweet unto me, and hadst put gladness in my heart. And I cried out, as I read this outwardly, finding it inwardly. Nor would I be multiplied with worldly goods; wasting away time, and wasted by time; whereas I had in Thy eternal Simple Essence other corn, and wine, and oil. And with a loud cry of my heart I cried out in the next verse, O in peace, O for The Self-same! O what said he, I will lay me down and sleep, for who shall hinder us, when cometh to pass that saying which is written, Death is swallowed up in victory? And Thou surpassingly art the Self-same, Who art not changed; and in Thee is rest which forgetteth all toil, for there is none other with Thee, nor are we to seek those many other things, which are not what Thou art: but Thou, Lord, alone hast made me dwell in hope. I read, and kindled; nor found I what to do to those deaf and dead, of whom myself had been, a pestilent person, a bitter and a blind bawler against those writings, which are honied with the honey of heaven, and lightsome with Thine own light: and I was consumed with zeal at the enemies of this Scripture. When shall I recall all which passed in those holy-days? Yet neither have I forgotten, nor will I pass over the severity of Thy scourge, and the wonderful swiftness of Thy mercy. Thou didst then torment me with pain in my teeth; which when it had come to such height that I could not speak, it came into my heart to desire all my friends present to pray for me to Thee, the God of all manner of health. And this I wrote on wax, and gave it them to read. Presently so soon as with humble devotion we had bowed our knees, that pain went away. But what pain? or how went it away? I was affrighted, O my Lord, my God; for from infancy I had never experienced the like. And the power of Thy Nod was deeply conveyed to me, and rejoicing in faith, I praised Thy Name. And that faith suffered me not to be at ease about my past sins, which were not yet forgiven me by Thy baptism. The vintage-vacation ended, I gave notice to the Milanese to provide their scholars with another master to sell words to them; for that I had both made choice to serve Thee, and through my difficulty of breathing and pain in my chest was not equal to the Professorship. And by letters I signified to Thy Prelate, the holy man Ambrose, my former errors and present desires, begging his advice what of Thy Scriptures I had best read, to become readier and fitter for receiving so great grace. He recommended Isaiah the Prophet: I believe, because he above the rest is a more clear foreshower of the Gospel and of the calling of the Gentiles. But I, not understanding the first lesson in him, and imagining the whole to be like it, laid it by, to be resumed when better practised in our Lord's own words. Thence, when the time was come wherein I was to give in my name, we left the country and returned to Milan. It pleased Alypius also to be with me born again in Thee, being already clothed with the humility befitting Thy Sacraments; and a most valiant tamer of the body, so as, with unwonted venture, to wear the frozen ground of Italy with his bare feet. We joined with us the boy Adeodatus, born after the flesh, of my sin. Excellently hadst Thou made him. He was not quite fifteen, and in wit surpassed many grave and learned men. I confess unto Thee Thy gifts, O Lord my God, Creator of all, and abundantly able to reform our deformities: for I had no part in that boy, but the sin. For that we brought him up in Thy discipline, it was Thou, none else, had inspired us with it. I confess unto Thee Thy gifts. There is a book of ours entitled The Master; it is a dialogue between him and me. Thou knowest that all there ascribed to the person conversing with me were his ideas, in his sixteenth year. Much besides, and yet more admirable, I found in him. That talent struck awe into me. And who but Thou could be the workmaster of such wonders? Soon didst Thou take his life from the earth: and I now remember him without anxiety, fearing nothing for his childhood or youth, or his whole self. Him we joined with us, our contemporary in grace, to be brought up in Thy discipline: and we were baptised, and anxiety for our past life vanished from us. Nor was I sated in those days with the wondrous sweetness of considering the depth of Thy counsels concerning the salvation of mankind. How did I weep, in Thy Hymns and Canticles, touched to the quick by the voices of Thy sweet-attuned Church! The voices flowed into mine ears, and the Truth distilled into my heart, whence the affections of my devotion overflowed, and tears ran down, and happy was I therein. Not long had the Church of Milan begun to use this kind of consolation and exhortation, the brethren zealously joining with harmony of voice and hearts. For it was a year, or not much more, that Justina, mother to the Emperor Valentinian, a child, persecuted Thy servant Ambrose, in favour of her heresy, to which she was seduced by the Arians. The devout people kept watch in the Church, ready to die with their Bishop Thy servant. There my mother Thy handmaid, bearing a chief part of those anxieties and watchings, lived for prayer. We, yet unwarmed by the heat of Thy Spirit, still were stirred up by the sight of the amazed and disquieted city. Then it was first instituted that after the manner of the Eastern Churches, Hymns and Psalms should be sung, lest the people should wax faint through the tediousness of sorrow: and from that day to this the custom is retained, divers (yea, almost all) Thy congregations, throughout other parts of the world following herein. Then didst Thou by a vision discover to Thy forenamed Bishop where the bodies of Gervasius and Protasius the martyrs lay hid (whom Thou hadst in Thy secret treasury stored uncorrupted so many years), whence Thou mightest seasonably produce them to repress the fury of a woman, but an Empress. For when they were discovered and dug up, and with due honour translated to the Ambrosian Basilica, not only they who were vexed with unclean spirits (the devils confessing themselves) were cured, but a certain man who had for many years been blind, a citizen, and well known to the city, asking and hearing the reason of the people's confused joy, sprang forth desiring his guide to lead him thither. Led thither, he begged to be allowed to touch with his handkerchief the bier of Thy saints, whose death is precious in Thy sight. Which when he had done, and put to his eyes, they were forthwith opened. Thence did the fame spread, thence Thy praises glowed, shone; thence the mind of that enemy, though not turned to the soundness of believing, was yet turned back from her fury of persecuting. Thanks to Thee, O my God. Whence and whither hast Thou thus led my remembrance, that I should confess these things also unto Thee? which great though they be, I had passed by in forgetfulness. And yet then, when the odour of Thy ointments was so fragrant, did we not run after Thee. Therefore did I more weep among the singing of Thy Hymns, formerly sighing after Thee, and at length breathing in Thee, as far as the breath may enter into this our house of grass. Thou that makest men to dwell of one mind in one house, didst join with us Euodius also, a young man of our own city. Who being an officer of Court, was before us converted to Thee and baptised: and quitting his secular warfare, girded himself to Thine. We were together, about to dwell together in our devout purpose. We sought where we might serve Thee most usefully, and were together returning to Africa: whitherward being as far as Ostia, my mother departed this life. Much I omit, as hastening much. Receive my confessions and thanksgivings, O my God, for innumerable things whereof I am silent. But I will not omit whatsoever my soul would bring forth concerning that Thy handmaid, who brought me forth, both in the flesh, that I might be born to this temporal light, and in heart, that I might be born to Light eternal. Not her gifts, but Thine in her, would I speak of; for neither did she make nor educate herself. Thou createdst her; nor did her father and mother know what a one should come from them. And the sceptre of Thy Christ, the discipline of Thine only Son, in a Christian house, a good member of Thy Church, educated her in Thy fear. Yet for her good discipline was she wont to commend not so much her mother's diligence, as that of a certain decrepit maid-servant, who had carried her father when a child, as little ones used to be carried at the backs of elder girls. For which reason, and for her great age, and excellent conversation, was she, in that Christian family, well respected by its heads. Whence also the charge of her master's daughters was entrusted to her, to which she gave diligent heed, restraining them earnestly, when necessary, with a holy severity, and teaching them with a grave discretion. For, except at those hours wherein they were most temporately fed at their parents' table, she would not suffer them, though parched with thirst, to drink even water; preventing an evil custom, and adding this wholesome advice: "Ye drink water now, because you have not wine in your power; but when you come to be married, and be made mistresses of cellars and cupboards, you will scorn water, but the custom of drinking will abide." By this method of instruction, and the authority she had, she refrained the greediness of childhood, and moulded their very thirst to such an excellent moderation that what they should not, that they would not. And yet (as Thy handmaid told me her son) there had crept upon her a love of wine. For when (as the manner was) she, as though a sober maiden, was bidden by her parents to draw wine out of the hogshed, holding the vessel under the opening, before she poured the wine into the flagon, she sipped a little with the tip of her lips; for more her instinctive feelings refused. For this she did, not out of any desire of drink, but out of the exuberance of youth, whereby it boils over in mirthful freaks, which in youthful spirits are wont to be kept under by the gravity of their elders. And thus by adding to that little, daily littles (for whoso despiseth little things shall fall by little and little), she had fallen into such a habit as greedily to drink off her little cup brim-full almost of wine. Where was then that discreet old woman, and that her earnest countermanding? Would aught avail against a secret disease, if Thy healing hand, O Lord, watched not over us? Father, mother, and governors absent, Thou present, who createdst, who callest, who also by those set over us, workest something towards the salvation of our souls, what didst Thou then, O my God? how didst Thou cure her? how heal her? didst Thou not out of another soul bring forth a hard and a sharp taunt, like a lancet out of Thy secret store, and with one touch remove all that foul stuff? For a maid-servant with whom she used to go to the cellar, falling to words (as it happens) with her little mistress, when alone with her, taunted her with this fault, with most bitter insult, calling her wine-bibber. With which taunt she, stung to the quick, saw the foulness of her fault, and instantly condemned and forsook it. As flattering friends pervert, so reproachful enemies mostly correct. Yet not what by them Thou doest, but what themselves purposed, dost Thou repay them. For she in her anger sought to vex her young mistress, not to amend her; and did it in private, either for that the time and place of the quarrel so found them; or lest herself also should have anger, for discovering it thus late. But Thou, Lord, Governor of all in heaven and earth, who turnest to Thy purposes the deepest currents, and the ruled turbulence of the tide of times, didst by the very unhealthiness of one soul heal another; lest any, when he observes this, should ascribe it to his own power, even when another, whom he wished to be reformed, is reformed through words of his. Brought up thus modestly and soberly, and made subject rather by Thee to her parents, than by her parents to Thee, so soon as she was of marriageable age, being bestowed upon a husband, she served him as her lord; and did her diligence to win him unto Thee, preaching Thee unto him by her conversation; by which Thou ornamentedst her, making her reverently amiable, and admirable unto her husband. And she so endured the wronging of her bed as never to have any quarrel with her husband thereon. For she looked for Thy mercy upon him, that believing in Thee, he might be made chaste. But besides this, he was fervid, as in his affections, so in anger: but she had learnt not to resist an angry husband, not in deed only, but not even in word. Only when he was smoothed and tranquil, and in a temper to receive it, she would give an account of her actions, if haply he had overhastily taken offence. In a word, while many matrons, who had milder husbands, yet bore even in their faces marks of shame, would in familiar talk blame their husbands' lives, she would blame their tongues, giving them, as in jest, earnest advice: "That from the time they heard the marriage writings read to them, they should account them as indentures, whereby they were made servants; and so, remembering their condition, ought not to set themselves up against their lords." And when they, knowing what a choleric husband she endured, marvelled that it had never been heard, nor by any token perceived, that Patricius had beaten his wife, or that there had been any domestic difference between them, even for one day, and confidentially asking the reason, she taught them her practice above mentioned. Those wives who observed it found the good, and returned thanks; those who observed it not, found no relief, and suffered. Her mother-in-law also, at first by whisperings of evil servants incensed against her, she so overcame by observance and persevering endurance and meekness, that she of her own accord discovered to her son the meddling tongues whereby the domestic peace betwixt her and her daughter-in-law had been disturbed, asking him to correct them. Then, when in compliance with his mother, and for the well-ordering of the family, he had with stripes corrected those discovered, at her will who had discovered them, she promised the like reward to any who, to please her, should speak ill of her daughter-in-law to her: and none now venturing, they lived together with a remarkable sweetness of mutual kindness. This great gift also thou bestowedst, O my God, my mercy, upon that good handmaid of Thine, in whose womb Thou createdst me, that between any disagreeing and discordant parties where she was able, she showed herself such a peacemaker, that hearing on both sides most bitter things, such as swelling and indigested choler uses to break out into, when the crudities of enmities are breathed out in sour discourses to a present friend against an absent enemy, she never would disclose aught of the one unto the other, but what might tend to their reconcilement. A small good this might appear to me, did I not to my grief know numberless persons, who through some horrible and wide-spreading contagion of sin, not only disclose to persons mutually angered things said in anger, but add withal things never spoken, whereas to humane humanity, it ought to seem a light thing not to torment or increase ill will by ill words, unless one study withal by good words to quench it. Such was she, Thyself, her most inward Instructor, teaching her in the school of

burden

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

words as it were fixed in our entrails: and the examples of Thy servants, whom for black Thou hadst made bright, and for dead, alive, being piled together in the receptacle of our thoughts, kindled and burned up that our heavy torpor, that we should not sink down to the abyss; and they fired us so vehemently, that all the blasts of subtle tongues from gainsayers might only inflame us the more fiercely, not extinguish us. Nevertheless, because for Thy Name's sake which Thou hast hallowed throughout the earth, this our vow and purpose might also find some to commend it, it seemed like ostentation not to wait for the vacation now so near, but to quit beforehand a public profession, which was before the eyes of all; so that all looking on this act of mine, and observing how near was the time of vintage which I wished to anticipate, would talk much of me, as if I had desired to appear some great one. And what end had it served me, that people should repute and dispute upon my purpose, and that our good should be evil spoken of. Moreover, it had at first troubled me that in this very summer my lungs began to give way, amid too great literary labour, and to breathe deeply with difficulty, and by the pain in my chest to show that they were injured, and to refuse any full or lengthened speaking; this had troubled me, for it almost constrained me of necessity to lay down that burden of teaching, or, if I could be cured and recover, at least to intermit it. But when the full wish for leisure, that I might see how that Thou art the Lord, arose, and was fixed, in me; my God, Thou knowest, I began even to rejoice that I had this secondary, and that no feigned, excuse, which might something moderate the offence taken by those who, for their sons' sake, wished me never to have the freedom of Thy sons. Full then of such joy, I endured till that interval of time were run; it may have been some twenty days, yet they were endured manfully; endured, for the covetousness which aforetime bore a part of this heavy business, had left me, and I remained alone, and had been overwhelmed, had not patience taken its place. Perchance, some of Thy servants, my brethren, may say that I sinned in this, that with a heart fully set on Thy service, I suffered myself to sit even one hour in the chair of lies. Nor would I be contentious. But hast not Thou, O most merciful Lord, pardoned and remitted this sin also, with my other most horrible and deadly sins, in the holy water? Verecundus was worn down with care about this our blessedness, for that being held back by bonds, whereby he was most straitly bound, he saw that he should be severed from us. For himself was not yet a Christian, his wife one of the faithful; and yet hereby, more rigidly than by any other chain, was he let and hindered from the journey which we had now essayed. For he would not, he said, be a Christian on any other terms than on those he could not. However, he offered us courteously to remain at his country-house so long as we should stay there. Thou, O Lord, shalt reward him in the resurrection of the just, seeing Thou hast already given him the lot of the righteous. For although, in our absence, being now at Rome, he was seized with bodily sickness, and therein being made a Christian, and one of the faithful, he departed this life; yet hadst Thou mercy not on him only, but on us also: lest remembering the exceeding kindness of our friend towards us, yet unable to number him among Thy flock, we should be agonised with intolerable sorrow. Thanks unto Thee, our God, we are Thine: Thy suggestions and consolations tell us, Faithful in promises, Thou now requitest Verecundus for his country-house of Cassiacum, where from the fever of the world we reposed in Thee, with the eternal freshness of Thy Paradise: for that Thou hast forgiven him his sins upon earth, in that rich mountain, that mountain which yieldeth milk, Thine own mountain. He then had at that time sorrow, but Nebridius joy. For although he also, not being yet a Christian, had fallen into the pit of that most pernicious error, believing the flesh of Thy Son to be a phantom: yet emerging thence, he believed as we did; not as yet endued with any Sacraments of Thy Church, but a most ardent searcher out of truth. Whom, not long after our conversion and regeneration by Thy Baptism, being also a faithful member of the Church Catholic, and serving Thee in perfect chastity and continence amongst his people in Africa, his whole house having through him first been made Christian, didst Thou release from the flesh; and now he lives in Abraham's bosom. Whatever that be, which is signified by that bosom, there lives my Nebridius, my sweet friend, and Thy child, O Lord, adopted of a freed man: there he liveth. For what other place is there for such a soul? There he liveth, whereof he asked much of me, a poor inexperienced man. Now lays he not his ear to my mouth, but his spiritual mouth unto Thy fountain, and drinketh as much as he can receive, wisdom in proportion to his thirst, endlessly happy. Nor do I think that he is so inebriated therewith, as to forget me; seeing Thou, Lord, Whom he drinketh, art mindful of us. So were we then, comforting Verecundus, who sorrowed, as far as friendship permitted, that our conversion was of such sort; and exhorting him to become faithful, according to his measure, namely, of a married estate; and awaiting Nebridius to follow us, which, being so near, he was all but doing: and so, lo! those days rolled by at length; for long and many they seemed, for the love I bare to the easeful liberty, that I might sing to Thee, from my inmost marrow, My heart hath said unto Thee, I have sought Thy face: Thy face, Lord, will I seek. Now was the day come wherein I was in deed to be freed of my Rhetoric Professorship, whereof in thought I was already freed. And it was done. Thou didst rescue my tongue, whence Thou hadst before rescued my heart. And I blessed Thee, rejoicing; retiring with all mine to the villa. What I there did in writing, which was now enlisted in Thy service, though still, in this breathing-time as it were, panting from the school of pride, my books may witness, as well what I debated with others, as what with myself alone, before Thee: what with Nebridius, who was absent, my Epistles bear witness. And when shall I have time to rehearse all Thy great benefits towards us at that time, especially when hasting on to yet greater mercies? For my remembrance recalls me, and pleasant is it to me, O Lord, to confess to Thee, by what inward goads Thou tamedst me; and how Thou hast evened me, lowering the mountains and hills of my high imaginations, straightening my crookedness, and smoothing my rough ways; and how Thou also subduedst the brother of my heart, Alypius, unto the name of Thy Only Begotten, our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, which he would not at first vouchsafe to have inserted in our writings. For rather would he have them savour of the lofty cedars of the Schools, which the Lord hath now broken down, than of the wholesome herbs of the Church, the antidote against serpents. Oh, in what accents spake I unto Thee, my God, when I read the Psalms of David, those faithful songs, and sounds of devotion, which allow of no swelling spirit, as yet a Catechumen, and a novice in Thy real love, resting in that villa, with Alypius a Catechumen, my mother cleaving to us, in female garb with masculine faith, with the tranquillity of age, motherly love, Christian piety! Oh, what accents did I utter unto Thee in those Psalms, and how was I by them kindled towards Thee, and on fire to rehearse them, if possible, through the whole world, against the pride of mankind! And yet they are sung through the whole world, nor can any hide himself from Thy heat. With what vehement and bitter sorrow was I angered at the Manichees! and again I pitied them, for they knew not those Sacraments, those medicines, and were mad against the antidote which might have recovered them of their madness. How I would they had then been somewhere near me, and without my knowing that they were there, could have beheld my countenance, and heard my words, when I read the fourth Psalm in that time of my rest, and how that Psalm wrought upon me: When I called, the God of my righteousness heard me; in tribulation Thou enlargedst me. Have mercy upon me, O Lord, and hear my prayer. Would that what I uttered on these words, they could hear, without my knowing whether they heard, lest they should think I spake it for their sakes! Because in truth neither should I speak the same things, nor in the same way, if I perceived that they heard and saw me; nor if I spake them would they so receive them, as when I spake by and for myself before Thee, out of the natural feelings of my soul. I trembled for fear, and again kindled with hope, and with rejoicing in Thy mercy, O Father; and all issued forth both by mine eyes and voice, when Thy good Spirit turning unto us, said, O ye sons of men, how long slow of heart? why do ye love vanity, and seek after leasing? For I had loved vanity, and sought after leasing. And Thou, O Lord, hadst already magnified Thy Holy One, raising Him from the dead, and setting Him at Thy right hand, whence from on high He should send His promise, the Comforter, the Spirit of truth. And He had already sent Him, but I knew it not; He had sent Him, because He was now magnified, rising again from the dead, and ascending into heaven. For till then, the Spirit was not yet given, because Jesus was not yet glorified. And the prophet cries out, How long, slow of heart? why do ye love vanity, and seek after leasing? Know this, that the Lord hath magnified His Holy One. He cries out, How long? He cries out, Know this: and I so long, not knowing, loved vanity, and sought after leasing: and therefore I heard and trembled, because it was spoken unto such as I remembered myself to have been. For in those phantoms which I had held for truths, was there vanity and leasing; and I spake aloud many things earnestly and forcibly, in the bitterness of my remembrance. Which would they had heard, who yet love vanity and seek after leasing! They would perchance have been troubled, and have vomited it up; and Thou wouldest hear them when they cried unto Thee; for by a true death in the flesh did He die for us, who now intercedeth unto Thee for us. I further read, Be angry, and sin not. And how was I moved, O my God, who had now learned to be angry at myself for things past, that I might not sin in time to come! Yea, to be justly angry; for that it was not another nature of a people of darkness which sinned for me, as they say who are not angry at themselves, and treasure up wrath against the day of wrath, and of the revelation of Thy just judgment. Nor were my good things now without, nor sought with the eyes of flesh in that earthly sun; for they that would have joy from without soon become vain, and waste themselves on the things seen and temporal, and in their famished thoughts do lick their very shadows. Oh that they were wearied out with their famine, and said, Who will show us good things? And we would say, and they hear, The light of Thy countenance is sealed upon us. For we are not that light which enlighteneth every man, but we are enlightened by Thee; that having been sometimes darkness, we may be light in Thee. Oh that they could see the eternal Internal, which having tasted, I was grieved that I could not show It them, so long as they brought me their heart in their eyes roving abroad from Thee, while they said, Who will show us good things? For there, where I was angry within myself in my chamber, where I was inwardly pricked, where I had sacrificed, slaying my old man and commencing the purpose of a new life, putting my trust in Thee,--there hadst Thou begun to grow sweet unto me, and hadst put gladness in my heart. And I cried out, as I read this outwardly, finding it inwardly. Nor would I be multiplied with worldly goods; wasting away time, and wasted by time; whereas I had in Thy eternal Simple Essence other corn, and wine, and oil. And with a loud cry of my heart I cried out in the next verse, O in peace, O for The Self-same! O what said he, I will lay me down and sleep, for who shall hinder us, when cometh to pass that saying which is written, Death is swallowed up in victory? And Thou surpassingly art the Self-same, Who art not changed; and in Thee is rest which forgetteth all toil, for there is none other with Thee, nor are we to seek those many other things, which are not what Thou art: but Thou, Lord, alone hast made me dwell in hope. I read, and kindled; nor found I what to do to those deaf and dead, of whom myself had been, a pestilent person, a bitter and a blind bawler against those writings, which are honied with the honey of heaven, and lightsome with Thine own light: and I was consumed with zeal at the enemies of this Scripture. When shall I recall all which passed in those holy-days? Yet neither have I forgotten, nor will I pass over the severity of Thy scourge, and the wonderful swiftness of Thy mercy. Thou didst then torment me with pain in my teeth; which when it had come to such height that I could not speak, it came into my heart to desire all my friends present to pray for me to Thee, the God of all manner of health. And this I wrote on wax, and gave it them to read. Presently so soon as with humble devotion we had bowed our knees, that pain went away. But what pain? or how went it away? I was affrighted, O my Lord, my God; for from infancy I had never experienced the like. And the power of Thy Nod was deeply conveyed to me, and rejoicing in faith, I praised Thy Name. And that faith suffered me not to be at ease about my past sins, which were not yet forgiven me by Thy baptism. The vintage-vacation ended, I gave notice to the Milanese to provide their scholars with another master to sell words to them; for that I had both made choice to serve Thee, and through my difficulty of breathing and pain in my chest was not equal to the Professorship. And by letters I signified to Thy Prelate, the holy man Ambrose, my former errors and present desires, begging his advice what of Thy Scriptures I had best read, to become readier and fitter for receiving so great grace. He recommended Isaiah the Prophet: I believe, because he above the rest is a more clear foreshower of the Gospel and of the calling of the Gentiles. But I, not understanding the first lesson in him, and imagining the whole to be like it, laid it by, to be resumed when better practised in our Lord's own words. Thence, when the time was come wherein I was to give in my name, we left the country and returned to Milan. It pleased Alypius also to be with me born again in Thee, being already clothed with the humility befitting Thy Sacraments; and a most valiant tamer of the body, so as, with unwonted venture, to wear the frozen ground of Italy with his bare feet. We joined with us the boy Adeodatus, born after the flesh, of my sin. Excellently hadst Thou made him. He was not quite fifteen, and in wit surpassed many grave and learned men. I confess unto Thee Thy gifts, O Lord my God, Creator of all, and abundantly able to reform our deformities: for I had no part in that boy, but the sin. For that we brought him up in Thy discipline, it was Thou, none else, had inspired us with it. I confess unto Thee Thy gifts. There is a book of ours entitled The Master; it is a dialogue between him and me. Thou knowest that all there ascribed to the person conversing with me were his ideas, in his sixteenth year. Much besides, and yet more admirable, I found in him. That talent struck awe into me. And who but Thou could be the workmaster of such wonders? Soon didst Thou take his life from the earth: and I now remember him without anxiety, fearing nothing for his childhood or youth, or his whole self. Him we joined with us, our contemporary in grace, to be brought up in Thy discipline: and we were baptised, and anxiety for our past life vanished from us. Nor was I sated in those days with the wondrous sweetness of considering the depth of Thy counsels concerning the salvation of mankind. How did I weep, in Thy Hymns and Canticles, touched to the quick by the voices of Thy sweet-attuned Church! The voices flowed into mine ears, and the Truth distilled into my heart, whence the affections of my devotion overflowed, and tears ran down, and happy was I therein. Not long had the Church of Milan begun to use this kind of consolation and exhortation, the brethren zealously joining with harmony of voice and hearts. For it was a year, or not much more, that Justina, mother to the Emperor Valentinian, a child, persecuted Thy servant Ambrose, in favour of her heresy, to which she was seduced by the Arians. The devout people kept watch in the Church, ready to die with their Bishop Thy servant. There my mother Thy handmaid, bearing a chief part of those anxieties and watchings, lived for prayer. We, yet unwarmed by the heat of Thy Spirit, still were stirred up by the sight of the amazed and disquieted city. Then it was first instituted that after the manner of the Eastern Churches, Hymns and Psalms should be sung, lest the people should wax faint through the tediousness of sorrow: and from that day to this the custom is retained, divers (yea, almost all) Thy congregations, throughout other parts of the world following herein. Then didst Thou by a vision discover to Thy forenamed Bishop where the bodies of Gervasius and Protasius the martyrs lay hid (whom Thou hadst in Thy secret treasury stored uncorrupted so many years), whence Thou mightest seasonably produce them to repress the fury of a woman, but an Empress. For when they were discovered and dug up, and with due honour translated to the Ambrosian Basilica, not only they who were vexed with unclean spirits (the devils confessing themselves) were cured, but a certain man who had for many years been blind, a citizen, and well known to the city, asking and hearing the reason of the people's confused joy, sprang forth desiring his guide to lead him thither. Led thither, he begged to be allowed to touch with his handkerchief the bier of Thy saints, whose death is precious in Thy sight. Which when he had done, and put to his eyes, they were forthwith opened. Thence did the fame spread, thence Thy praises glowed, shone; thence the mind of that enemy, though not turned to the soundness of believing, was yet turned back from her fury of persecuting. Thanks to Thee, O my God. Whence and whither hast Thou thus led my remembrance, that I should confess these things also unto Thee? which great though they be, I had passed by in forgetfulness. And yet then, when the odour of Thy ointments was so fragrant, did we not run after Thee. Therefore did I more weep among the singing of Thy Hymns, formerly sighing after Thee, and at length breathing in Thee, as far as the breath may enter into this our house of grass. Thou that makest men to dwell of one mind in one house, didst join with us Euodius also, a young man of our own city. Who being an officer of Court, was before us converted to Thee and baptised: and quitting his secular warfare, girded himself to Thine. We were together, about to dwell together in our devout purpose. We sought where we might serve Thee most usefully, and were together returning to Africa: whitherward being as far as Ostia, my mother departed this life. Much I omit, as hastening much. Receive my confessions and thanksgivings, O my God, for innumerable things whereof I am silent. But I will not omit whatsoever my soul would bring forth concerning that Thy handmaid, who brought me forth, both in the flesh, that I might be born to this temporal light, and in heart, that I might be born to Light eternal. Not her gifts, but Thine in her, would I speak of; for neither did she make nor educate herself. Thou createdst her; nor did her father and mother know what a one should come from them. And the sceptre of Thy Christ, the discipline of Thine only Son, in a Christian house, a good member of Thy Church, educated her in Thy fear. Yet for her good discipline was she wont to commend not so much her mother's diligence, as that of a certain decrepit maid-servant, who had carried her father when a child, as little ones used to be carried at the backs of elder girls. For which reason, and for her great age, and excellent conversation, was she, in that Christian family, well respected by its heads. Whence also the charge of her master's daughters was entrusted to her, to which she gave diligent heed, restraining them earnestly, when necessary, with a holy severity, and teaching them with a grave discretion. For, except at those hours wherein they were most temporately fed at their parents' table, she would not suffer them, though parched with thirst, to drink even water; preventing an evil custom, and adding this wholesome advice: "Ye drink water now, because you have not wine in your power; but when you come to be married, and be made mistresses of cellars and cupboards, you will scorn water, but the custom of drinking will abide." By this method of instruction, and the authority she had, she refrained the greediness of childhood, and moulded their very thirst to such an excellent moderation that what they should not, that they would not. And yet (as Thy handmaid told me her son) there had crept upon her a love of wine. For when (as the manner was) she, as though a sober maiden, was bidden by her parents to draw wine out of the hogshed, holding the vessel under the opening, before she poured the wine into the flagon, she sipped a little with the tip of her lips; for more her instinctive feelings refused. For this she did, not out of any desire of drink, but out of the exuberance of youth, whereby it boils over in mirthful freaks, which in youthful spirits are wont to be kept under by the gravity of their elders. And thus by adding to that little, daily littles (for whoso despiseth little things shall fall by little and little), she had fallen into such a habit as greedily to drink off her little cup brim-full almost of wine. Where was then that discreet old woman, and that her earnest countermanding? Would aught avail against a secret disease, if Thy healing hand, O Lord, watched not over us? Father, mother, and governors absent, Thou present, who createdst, who callest, who also by those set over us, workest something towards the salvation of our souls, what didst Thou then, O my God? how didst Thou cure her? how heal her? didst Thou not out of another soul bring forth a hard and a sharp taunt, like a lancet out of Thy secret store, and with one touch remove all that foul stuff? For a maid-servant with whom she used to go to the cellar, falling to words (as it happens) with her little mistress, when alone with her, taunted her with this fault, with most bitter insult, calling her wine-bibber. With which taunt she, stung to the quick, saw the foulness of her fault, and instantly condemned and forsook it. As flattering friends pervert, so reproachful enemies mostly correct. Yet not what by them Thou doest, but what themselves purposed, dost Thou repay them. For she in her anger sought to vex her young mistress, not to amend her; and did it in private, either for that the time and place of the quarrel so found them; or lest herself also should have anger, for discovering it thus late. But Thou, Lord, Governor of all in heaven and earth, who turnest to Thy purposes the deepest currents, and the ruled turbulence of the tide of times, didst by the very unhealthiness of one soul heal another; lest any, when he observes this, should ascribe it to his own power, even when another, whom he wished to be reformed, is reformed through words of his. Brought up thus modestly and soberly, and made subject rather by Thee to her parents, than by her parents to Thee, so soon as she was of marriageable age, being bestowed upon a husband, she served him as her lord; and did her diligence to win him unto Thee, preaching Thee unto him by her conversation; by which Thou ornamentedst her, making her reverently amiable, and admirable unto her husband. And she so endured the wronging of her bed as never to have any quarrel with her husband thereon. For she looked for Thy mercy upon him, that believing in Thee, he might be made chaste. But besides this, he was fervid, as in his affections, so in anger: but she had learnt not to resist an angry husband, not in deed only, but not even in word. Only when he was smoothed and tranquil, and in a temper to receive it, she would give an account of her actions, if haply he had overhastily taken offence. In a word, while many matrons, who had milder husbands, yet bore even in their faces marks of shame, would in familiar talk blame their husbands' lives, she would blame their tongues, giving them, as in jest, earnest advice: "That from the time they heard the marriage writings read to them, they should account them as indentures, whereby they were made servants; and so, remembering their condition, ought not to set themselves up against their lords." And when they, knowing what a choleric husband she endured, marvelled that it had never been heard, nor by any token perceived, that Patricius had beaten his wife, or that there had been any domestic difference between them, even for one day, and confidentially asking the reason, she taught them her practice above mentioned. Those wives who observed it found the good, and returned thanks; those who observed it not, found no relief, and suffered. Her mother-in-law also, at first by whisperings of evil servants incensed against her, she so overcame by observance and persevering endurance and meekness, that she of her own accord discovered to her son the meddling tongues whereby the domestic peace betwixt her and her daughter-in-law had been disturbed, asking him to correct them. Then, when in compliance with his mother, and for the well-ordering of the family, he had with stripes corrected those discovered, at her will who had discovered them, she promised the like reward to any who, to please her, should speak ill of her daughter-in-law to her: and none now venturing, they lived together with a remarkable sweetness of mutual kindness. This great gift also thou bestowedst, O my God, my mercy, upon that good handmaid of Thine, in whose womb Thou createdst me, that between any disagreeing and discordant parties where she was able, she showed herself such a peacemaker, that hearing on both sides most bitter things, such as swelling and indigested choler uses to break out into, when the crudities of enmities are breathed out in sour discourses to a present friend against an absent enemy, she never would disclose aught of the one unto the other, but what might tend to their reconcilement. A small good this might appear to me, did I not to my grief know numberless persons, who through some horrible and wide-spreading contagion of sin, not only disclose to persons mutually angered things said in anger, but add withal things never spoken, whereas to humane humanity, it ought to seem a light thing not to torment or increase ill will by ill words, unless one study withal by good words to quench it. Such was she, Thyself, her most inward Instructor, teaching her in the school of

arrive

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

words as it were fixed in our entrails: and the examples of Thy servants, whom for black Thou hadst made bright, and for dead, alive, being piled together in the receptacle of our thoughts, kindled and burned up that our heavy torpor, that we should not sink down to the abyss; and they fired us so vehemently, that all the blasts of subtle tongues from gainsayers might only inflame us the more fiercely, not extinguish us. Nevertheless, because for Thy Name's sake which Thou hast hallowed throughout the earth, this our vow and purpose might also find some to commend it, it seemed like ostentation not to wait for the vacation now so near, but to quit beforehand a public profession, which was before the eyes of all; so that all looking on this act of mine, and observing how near was the time of vintage which I wished to anticipate, would talk much of me, as if I had desired to appear some great one. And what end had it served me, that people should repute and dispute upon my purpose, and that our good should be evil spoken of. Moreover, it had at first troubled me that in this very summer my lungs began to give way, amid too great literary labour, and to breathe deeply with difficulty, and by the pain in my chest to show that they were injured, and to refuse any full or lengthened speaking; this had troubled me, for it almost constrained me of necessity to lay down that burden of teaching, or, if I could be cured and recover, at least to intermit it. But when the full wish for leisure, that I might see how that Thou art the Lord, arose, and was fixed, in me; my God, Thou knowest, I began even to rejoice that I had this secondary, and that no feigned, excuse, which might something moderate the offence taken by those who, for their sons' sake, wished me never to have the freedom of Thy sons. Full then of such joy, I endured till that interval of time were run; it may have been some twenty days, yet they were endured manfully; endured, for the covetousness which aforetime bore a part of this heavy business, had left me, and I remained alone, and had been overwhelmed, had not patience taken its place. Perchance, some of Thy servants, my brethren, may say that I sinned in this, that with a heart fully set on Thy service, I suffered myself to sit even one hour in the chair of lies. Nor would I be contentious. But hast not Thou, O most merciful Lord, pardoned and remitted this sin also, with my other most horrible and deadly sins, in the holy water? Verecundus was worn down with care about this our blessedness, for that being held back by bonds, whereby he was most straitly bound, he saw that he should be severed from us. For himself was not yet a Christian, his wife one of the faithful; and yet hereby, more rigidly than by any other chain, was he let and hindered from the journey which we had now essayed. For he would not, he said, be a Christian on any other terms than on those he could not. However, he offered us courteously to remain at his country-house so long as we should stay there. Thou, O Lord, shalt reward him in the resurrection of the just, seeing Thou hast already given him the lot of the righteous. For although, in our absence, being now at Rome, he was seized with bodily sickness, and therein being made a Christian, and one of the faithful, he departed this life; yet hadst Thou mercy not on him only, but on us also: lest remembering the exceeding kindness of our friend towards us, yet unable to number him among Thy flock, we should be agonised with intolerable sorrow. Thanks unto Thee, our God, we are Thine: Thy suggestions and consolations tell us, Faithful in promises, Thou now requitest Verecundus for his country-house of Cassiacum, where from the fever of the world we reposed in Thee, with the eternal freshness of Thy Paradise: for that Thou hast forgiven him his sins upon earth, in that rich mountain, that mountain which yieldeth milk, Thine own mountain. He then had at that time sorrow, but Nebridius joy. For although he also, not being yet a Christian, had fallen into the pit of that most pernicious error, believing the flesh of Thy Son to be a phantom: yet emerging thence, he believed as we did; not as yet endued with any Sacraments of Thy Church, but a most ardent searcher out of truth. Whom, not long after our conversion and regeneration by Thy Baptism, being also a faithful member of the Church Catholic, and serving Thee in perfect chastity and continence amongst his people in Africa, his whole house having through him first been made Christian, didst Thou release from the flesh; and now he lives in Abraham's bosom. Whatever that be, which is signified by that bosom, there lives my Nebridius, my sweet friend, and Thy child, O Lord, adopted of a freed man: there he liveth. For what other place is there for such a soul? There he liveth, whereof he asked much of me, a poor inexperienced man. Now lays he not his ear to my mouth, but his spiritual mouth unto Thy fountain, and drinketh as much as he can receive, wisdom in proportion to his thirst, endlessly happy. Nor do I think that he is so inebriated therewith, as to forget me; seeing Thou, Lord, Whom he drinketh, art mindful of us. So were we then, comforting Verecundus, who sorrowed, as far as friendship permitted, that our conversion was of such sort; and exhorting him to become faithful, according to his measure, namely, of a married estate; and awaiting Nebridius to follow us, which, being so near, he was all but doing: and so, lo! those days rolled by at length; for long and many they seemed, for the love I bare to the easeful liberty, that I might sing to Thee, from my inmost marrow, My heart hath said unto Thee, I have sought Thy face: Thy face, Lord, will I seek. Now was the day come wherein I was in deed to be freed of my Rhetoric Professorship, whereof in thought I was already freed. And it was done. Thou didst rescue my tongue, whence Thou hadst before rescued my heart. And I blessed Thee, rejoicing; retiring with all mine to the villa. What I there did in writing, which was now enlisted in Thy service, though still, in this breathing-time as it were, panting from the school of pride, my books may witness, as well what I debated with others, as what with myself alone, before Thee: what with Nebridius, who was absent, my Epistles bear witness. And when shall I have time to rehearse all Thy great benefits towards us at that time, especially when hasting on to yet greater mercies? For my remembrance recalls me, and pleasant is it to me, O Lord, to confess to Thee, by what inward goads Thou tamedst me; and how Thou hast evened me, lowering the mountains and hills of my high imaginations, straightening my crookedness, and smoothing my rough ways; and how Thou also subduedst the brother of my heart, Alypius, unto the name of Thy Only Begotten, our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, which he would not at first vouchsafe to have inserted in our writings. For rather would he have them savour of the lofty cedars of the Schools, which the Lord hath now broken down, than of the wholesome herbs of the Church, the antidote against serpents. Oh, in what accents spake I unto Thee, my God, when I read the Psalms of David, those faithful songs, and sounds of devotion, which allow of no swelling spirit, as yet a Catechumen, and a novice in Thy real love, resting in that villa, with Alypius a Catechumen, my mother cleaving to us, in female garb with masculine faith, with the tranquillity of age, motherly love, Christian piety! Oh, what accents did I utter unto Thee in those Psalms, and how was I by them kindled towards Thee, and on fire to rehearse them, if possible, through the whole world, against the pride of mankind! And yet they are sung through the whole world, nor can any hide himself from Thy heat. With what vehement and bitter sorrow was I angered at the Manichees! and again I pitied them, for they knew not those Sacraments, those medicines, and were mad against the antidote which might have recovered them of their madness. How I would they had then been somewhere near me, and without my knowing that they were there, could have beheld my countenance, and heard my words, when I read the fourth Psalm in that time of my rest, and how that Psalm wrought upon me: When I called, the God of my righteousness heard me; in tribulation Thou enlargedst me. Have mercy upon me, O Lord, and hear my prayer. Would that what I uttered on these words, they could hear, without my knowing whether they heard, lest they should think I spake it for their sakes! Because in truth neither should I speak the same things, nor in the same way, if I perceived that they heard and saw me; nor if I spake them would they so receive them, as when I spake by and for myself before Thee, out of the natural feelings of my soul. I trembled for fear, and again kindled with hope, and with rejoicing in Thy mercy, O Father; and all issued forth both by mine eyes and voice, when Thy good Spirit turning unto us, said, O ye sons of men, how long slow of heart? why do ye love vanity, and seek after leasing? For I had loved vanity, and sought after leasing. And Thou, O Lord, hadst already magnified Thy Holy One, raising Him from the dead, and setting Him at Thy right hand, whence from on high He should send His promise, the Comforter, the Spirit of truth. And He had already sent Him, but I knew it not; He had sent Him, because He was now magnified, rising again from the dead, and ascending into heaven. For till then, the Spirit was not yet given, because Jesus was not yet glorified. And the prophet cries out, How long, slow of heart? why do ye love vanity, and seek after leasing? Know this, that the Lord hath magnified His Holy One. He cries out, How long? He cries out, Know this: and I so long, not knowing, loved vanity, and sought after leasing: and therefore I heard and trembled, because it was spoken unto such as I remembered myself to have been. For in those phantoms which I had held for truths, was there vanity and leasing; and I spake aloud many things earnestly and forcibly, in the bitterness of my remembrance. Which would they had heard, who yet love vanity and seek after leasing! They would perchance have been troubled, and have vomited it up; and Thou wouldest hear them when they cried unto Thee; for by a true death in the flesh did He die for us, who now intercedeth unto Thee for us. I further read, Be angry, and sin not. And how was I moved, O my God, who had now learned to be angry at myself for things past, that I might not sin in time to come! Yea, to be justly angry; for that it was not another nature of a people of darkness which sinned for me, as they say who are not angry at themselves, and treasure up wrath against the day of wrath, and of the revelation of Thy just judgment. Nor were my good things now without, nor sought with the eyes of flesh in that earthly sun; for they that would have joy from without soon become vain, and waste themselves on the things seen and temporal, and in their famished thoughts do lick their very shadows. Oh that they were wearied out with their famine, and said, Who will show us good things? And we would say, and they hear, The light of Thy countenance is sealed upon us. For we are not that light which enlighteneth every man, but we are enlightened by Thee; that having been sometimes darkness, we may be light in Thee. Oh that they could see the eternal Internal, which having tasted, I was grieved that I could not show It them, so long as they brought me their heart in their eyes roving abroad from Thee, while they said, Who will show us good things? For there, where I was angry within myself in my chamber, where I was inwardly pricked, where I had sacrificed, slaying my old man and commencing the purpose of a new life, putting my trust in Thee,--there hadst Thou begun to grow sweet unto me, and hadst put gladness in my heart. And I cried out, as I read this outwardly, finding it inwardly. Nor would I be multiplied with worldly goods; wasting away time, and wasted by time; whereas I had in Thy eternal Simple Essence other corn, and wine, and oil. And with a loud cry of my heart I cried out in the next verse, O in peace, O for The Self-same! O what said he, I will lay me down and sleep, for who shall hinder us, when cometh to pass that saying which is written, Death is swallowed up in victory? And Thou surpassingly art the Self-same, Who art not changed; and in Thee is rest which forgetteth all toil, for there is none other with Thee, nor are we to seek those many other things, which are not what Thou art: but Thou, Lord, alone hast made me dwell in hope. I read, and kindled; nor found I what to do to those deaf and dead, of whom myself had been, a pestilent person, a bitter and a blind bawler against those writings, which are honied with the honey of heaven, and lightsome with Thine own light: and I was consumed with zeal at the enemies of this Scripture. When shall I recall all which passed in those holy-days? Yet neither have I forgotten, nor will I pass over the severity of Thy scourge, and the wonderful swiftness of Thy mercy. Thou didst then torment me with pain in my teeth; which when it had come to such height that I could not speak, it came into my heart to desire all my friends present to pray for me to Thee, the God of all manner of health. And this I wrote on wax, and gave it them to read. Presently so soon as with humble devotion we had bowed our knees, that pain went away. But what pain? or how went it away? I was affrighted, O my Lord, my God; for from infancy I had never experienced the like. And the power of Thy Nod was deeply conveyed to me, and rejoicing in faith, I praised Thy Name. And that faith suffered me not to be at ease about my past sins, which were not yet forgiven me by Thy baptism. The vintage-vacation ended, I gave notice to the Milanese to provide their scholars with another master to sell words to them; for that I had both made choice to serve Thee, and through my difficulty of breathing and pain in my chest was not equal to the Professorship. And by letters I signified to Thy Prelate, the holy man Ambrose, my former errors and present desires, begging his advice what of Thy Scriptures I had best read, to become readier and fitter for receiving so great grace. He recommended Isaiah the Prophet: I believe, because he above the rest is a more clear foreshower of the Gospel and of the calling of the Gentiles. But I, not understanding the first lesson in him, and imagining the whole to be like it, laid it by, to be resumed when better practised in our Lord's own words. Thence, when the time was come wherein I was to give in my name, we left the country and returned to Milan. It pleased Alypius also to be with me born again in Thee, being already clothed with the humility befitting Thy Sacraments; and a most valiant tamer of the body, so as, with unwonted venture, to wear the frozen ground of Italy with his bare feet. We joined with us the boy Adeodatus, born after the flesh, of my sin. Excellently hadst Thou made him. He was not quite fifteen, and in wit surpassed many grave and learned men. I confess unto Thee Thy gifts, O Lord my God, Creator of all, and abundantly able to reform our deformities: for I had no part in that boy, but the sin. For that we brought him up in Thy discipline, it was Thou, none else, had inspired us with it. I confess unto Thee Thy gifts. There is a book of ours entitled The Master; it is a dialogue between him and me. Thou knowest that all there ascribed to the person conversing with me were his ideas, in his sixteenth year. Much besides, and yet more admirable, I found in him. That talent struck awe into me. And who but Thou could be the workmaster of such wonders? Soon didst Thou take his life from the earth: and I now remember him without anxiety, fearing nothing for his childhood or youth, or his whole self. Him we joined with us, our contemporary in grace, to be brought up in Thy discipline: and we were baptised, and anxiety for our past life vanished from us. Nor was I sated in those days with the wondrous sweetness of considering the depth of Thy counsels concerning the salvation of mankind. How did I weep, in Thy Hymns and Canticles, touched to the quick by the voices of Thy sweet-attuned Church! The voices flowed into mine ears, and the Truth distilled into my heart, whence the affections of my devotion overflowed, and tears ran down, and happy was I therein. Not long had the Church of Milan begun to use this kind of consolation and exhortation, the brethren zealously joining with harmony of voice and hearts. For it was a year, or not much more, that Justina, mother to the Emperor Valentinian, a child, persecuted Thy servant Ambrose, in favour of her heresy, to which she was seduced by the Arians. The devout people kept watch in the Church, ready to die with their Bishop Thy servant. There my mother Thy handmaid, bearing a chief part of those anxieties and watchings, lived for prayer. We, yet unwarmed by the heat of Thy Spirit, still were stirred up by the sight of the amazed and disquieted city. Then it was first instituted that after the manner of the Eastern Churches, Hymns and Psalms should be sung, lest the people should wax faint through the tediousness of sorrow: and from that day to this the custom is retained, divers (yea, almost all) Thy congregations, throughout other parts of the world following herein. Then didst Thou by a vision discover to Thy forenamed Bishop where the bodies of Gervasius and Protasius the martyrs lay hid (whom Thou hadst in Thy secret treasury stored uncorrupted so many years), whence Thou mightest seasonably produce them to repress the fury of a woman, but an Empress. For when they were discovered and dug up, and with due honour translated to the Ambrosian Basilica, not only they who were vexed with unclean spirits (the devils confessing themselves) were cured, but a certain man who had for many years been blind, a citizen, and well known to the city, asking and hearing the reason of the people's confused joy, sprang forth desiring his guide to lead him thither. Led thither, he begged to be allowed to touch with his handkerchief the bier of Thy saints, whose death is precious in Thy sight. Which when he had done, and put to his eyes, they were forthwith opened. Thence did the fame spread, thence Thy praises glowed, shone; thence the mind of that enemy, though not turned to the soundness of believing, was yet turned back from her fury of persecuting. Thanks to Thee, O my God. Whence and whither hast Thou thus led my remembrance, that I should confess these things also unto Thee? which great though they be, I had passed by in forgetfulness. And yet then, when the odour of Thy ointments was so fragrant, did we not run after Thee. Therefore did I more weep among the singing of Thy Hymns, formerly sighing after Thee, and at length breathing in Thee, as far as the breath may enter into this our house of grass. Thou that makest men to dwell of one mind in one house, didst join with us Euodius also, a young man of our own city. Who being an officer of Court, was before us converted to Thee and baptised: and quitting his secular warfare, girded himself to Thine. We were together, about to dwell together in our devout purpose. We sought where we might serve Thee most usefully, and were together returning to Africa: whitherward being as far as Ostia, my mother departed this life. Much I omit, as hastening much. Receive my confessions and thanksgivings, O my God, for innumerable things whereof I am silent. But I will not omit whatsoever my soul would bring forth concerning that Thy handmaid, who brought me forth, both in the flesh, that I might be born to this temporal light, and in heart, that I might be born to Light eternal. Not her gifts, but Thine in her, would I speak of; for neither did she make nor educate herself. Thou createdst her; nor did her father and mother know what a one should come from them. And the sceptre of Thy Christ, the discipline of Thine only Son, in a Christian house, a good member of Thy Church, educated her in Thy fear. Yet for her good discipline was she wont to commend not so much her mother's diligence, as that of a certain decrepit maid-servant, who had carried her father when a child, as little ones used to be carried at the backs of elder girls. For which reason, and for her great age, and excellent conversation, was she, in that Christian family, well respected by its heads. Whence also the charge of her master's daughters was entrusted to her, to which she gave diligent heed, restraining them earnestly, when necessary, with a holy severity, and teaching them with a grave discretion. For, except at those hours wherein they were most temporately fed at their parents' table, she would not suffer them, though parched with thirst, to drink even water; preventing an evil custom, and adding this wholesome advice: "Ye drink water now, because you have not wine in your power; but when you come to be married, and be made mistresses of cellars and cupboards, you will scorn water, but the custom of drinking will abide." By this method of instruction, and the authority she had, she refrained the greediness of childhood, and moulded their very thirst to such an excellent moderation that what they should not, that they would not. And yet (as Thy handmaid told me her son) there had crept upon her a love of wine. For when (as the manner was) she, as though a sober maiden, was bidden by her parents to draw wine out of the hogshed, holding the vessel under the opening, before she poured the wine into the flagon, she sipped a little with the tip of her lips; for more her instinctive feelings refused. For this she did, not out of any desire of drink, but out of the exuberance of youth, whereby it boils over in mirthful freaks, which in youthful spirits are wont to be kept under by the gravity of their elders. And thus by adding to that little, daily littles (for whoso despiseth little things shall fall by little and little), she had fallen into such a habit as greedily to drink off her little cup brim-full almost of wine. Where was then that discreet old woman, and that her earnest countermanding? Would aught avail against a secret disease, if Thy healing hand, O Lord, watched not over us? Father, mother, and governors absent, Thou present, who createdst, who callest, who also by those set over us, workest something towards the salvation of our souls, what didst Thou then, O my God? how didst Thou cure her? how heal her? didst Thou not out of another soul bring forth a hard and a sharp taunt, like a lancet out of Thy secret store, and with one touch remove all that foul stuff? For a maid-servant with whom she used to go to the cellar, falling to words (as it happens) with her little mistress, when alone with her, taunted her with this fault, with most bitter insult, calling her wine-bibber. With which taunt she, stung to the quick, saw the foulness of her fault, and instantly condemned and forsook it. As flattering friends pervert, so reproachful enemies mostly correct. Yet not what by them Thou doest, but what themselves purposed, dost Thou repay them. For she in her anger sought to vex her young mistress, not to amend her; and did it in private, either for that the time and place of the quarrel so found them; or lest herself also should have anger, for discovering it thus late. But Thou, Lord, Governor of all in heaven and earth, who turnest to Thy purposes the deepest currents, and the ruled turbulence of the tide of times, didst by the very unhealthiness of one soul heal another; lest any, when he observes this, should ascribe it to his own power, even when another, whom he wished to be reformed, is reformed through words of his. Brought up thus modestly and soberly, and made subject rather by Thee to her parents, than by her parents to Thee, so soon as she was of marriageable age, being bestowed upon a husband, she served him as her lord; and did her diligence to win him unto Thee, preaching Thee unto him by her conversation; by which Thou ornamentedst her, making her reverently amiable, and admirable unto her husband. And she so endured the wronging of her bed as never to have any quarrel with her husband thereon. For she looked for Thy mercy upon him, that believing in Thee, he might be made chaste. But besides this, he was fervid, as in his affections, so in anger: but she had learnt not to resist an angry husband, not in deed only, but not even in word. Only when he was smoothed and tranquil, and in a temper to receive it, she would give an account of her actions, if haply he had overhastily taken offence. In a word, while many matrons, who had milder husbands, yet bore even in their faces marks of shame, would in familiar talk blame their husbands' lives, she would blame their tongues, giving them, as in jest, earnest advice: "That from the time they heard the marriage writings read to them, they should account them as indentures, whereby they were made servants; and so, remembering their condition, ought not to set themselves up against their lords." And when they, knowing what a choleric husband she endured, marvelled that it had never been heard, nor by any token perceived, that Patricius had beaten his wife, or that there had been any domestic difference between them, even for one day, and confidentially asking the reason, she taught them her practice above mentioned. Those wives who observed it found the good, and returned thanks; those who observed it not, found no relief, and suffered. Her mother-in-law also, at first by whisperings of evil servants incensed against her, she so overcame by observance and persevering endurance and meekness, that she of her own accord discovered to her son the meddling tongues whereby the domestic peace betwixt her and her daughter-in-law had been disturbed, asking him to correct them. Then, when in compliance with his mother, and for the well-ordering of the family, he had with stripes corrected those discovered, at her will who had discovered them, she promised the like reward to any who, to please her, should speak ill of her daughter-in-law to her: and none now venturing, they lived together with a remarkable sweetness of mutual kindness. This great gift also thou bestowedst, O my God, my mercy, upon that good handmaid of Thine, in whose womb Thou createdst me, that between any disagreeing and discordant parties where she was able, she showed herself such a peacemaker, that hearing on both sides most bitter things, such as swelling and indigested choler uses to break out into, when the crudities of enmities are breathed out in sour discourses to a present friend against an absent enemy, she never would disclose aught of the one unto the other, but what might tend to their reconcilement. A small good this might appear to me, did I not to my grief know numberless persons, who through some horrible and wide-spreading contagion of sin, not only disclose to persons mutually angered things said in anger, but add withal things never spoken, whereas to humane humanity, it ought to seem a light thing not to torment or increase ill will by ill words, unless one study withal by good words to quench it. Such was she, Thyself, her most inward Instructor, teaching her in the school of

gross

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

words as it were fixed in our entrails: and the examples of Thy servants, whom for black Thou hadst made bright, and for dead, alive, being piled together in the receptacle of our thoughts, kindled and burned up that our heavy torpor, that we should not sink down to the abyss; and they fired us so vehemently, that all the blasts of subtle tongues from gainsayers might only inflame us the more fiercely, not extinguish us. Nevertheless, because for Thy Name's sake which Thou hast hallowed throughout the earth, this our vow and purpose might also find some to commend it, it seemed like ostentation not to wait for the vacation now so near, but to quit beforehand a public profession, which was before the eyes of all; so that all looking on this act of mine, and observing how near was the time of vintage which I wished to anticipate, would talk much of me, as if I had desired to appear some great one. And what end had it served me, that people should repute and dispute upon my purpose, and that our good should be evil spoken of. Moreover, it had at first troubled me that in this very summer my lungs began to give way, amid too great literary labour, and to breathe deeply with difficulty, and by the pain in my chest to show that they were injured, and to refuse any full or lengthened speaking; this had troubled me, for it almost constrained me of necessity to lay down that burden of teaching, or, if I could be cured and recover, at least to intermit it. But when the full wish for leisure, that I might see how that Thou art the Lord, arose, and was fixed, in me; my God, Thou knowest, I began even to rejoice that I had this secondary, and that no feigned, excuse, which might something moderate the offence taken by those who, for their sons' sake, wished me never to have the freedom of Thy sons. Full then of such joy, I endured till that interval of time were run; it may have been some twenty days, yet they were endured manfully; endured, for the covetousness which aforetime bore a part of this heavy business, had left me, and I remained alone, and had been overwhelmed, had not patience taken its place. Perchance, some of Thy servants, my brethren, may say that I sinned in this, that with a heart fully set on Thy service, I suffered myself to sit even one hour in the chair of lies. Nor would I be contentious. But hast not Thou, O most merciful Lord, pardoned and remitted this sin also, with my other most horrible and deadly sins, in the holy water? Verecundus was worn down with care about this our blessedness, for that being held back by bonds, whereby he was most straitly bound, he saw that he should be severed from us. For himself was not yet a Christian, his wife one of the faithful; and yet hereby, more rigidly than by any other chain, was he let and hindered from the journey which we had now essayed. For he would not, he said, be a Christian on any other terms than on those he could not. However, he offered us courteously to remain at his country-house so long as we should stay there. Thou, O Lord, shalt reward him in the resurrection of the just, seeing Thou hast already given him the lot of the righteous. For although, in our absence, being now at Rome, he was seized with bodily sickness, and therein being made a Christian, and one of the faithful, he departed this life; yet hadst Thou mercy not on him only, but on us also: lest remembering the exceeding kindness of our friend towards us, yet unable to number him among Thy flock, we should be agonised with intolerable sorrow. Thanks unto Thee, our God, we are Thine: Thy suggestions and consolations tell us, Faithful in promises, Thou now requitest Verecundus for his country-house of Cassiacum, where from the fever of the world we reposed in Thee, with the eternal freshness of Thy Paradise: for that Thou hast forgiven him his sins upon earth, in that rich mountain, that mountain which yieldeth milk, Thine own mountain. He then had at that time sorrow, but Nebridius joy. For although he also, not being yet a Christian, had fallen into the pit of that most pernicious error, believing the flesh of Thy Son to be a phantom: yet emerging thence, he believed as we did; not as yet endued with any Sacraments of Thy Church, but a most ardent searcher out of truth. Whom, not long after our conversion and regeneration by Thy Baptism, being also a faithful member of the Church Catholic, and serving Thee in perfect chastity and continence amongst his people in Africa, his whole house having through him first been made Christian, didst Thou release from the flesh; and now he lives in Abraham's bosom. Whatever that be, which is signified by that bosom, there lives my Nebridius, my sweet friend, and Thy child, O Lord, adopted of a freed man: there he liveth. For what other place is there for such a soul? There he liveth, whereof he asked much of me, a poor inexperienced man. Now lays he not his ear to my mouth, but his spiritual mouth unto Thy fountain, and drinketh as much as he can receive, wisdom in proportion to his thirst, endlessly happy. Nor do I think that he is so inebriated therewith, as to forget me; seeing Thou, Lord, Whom he drinketh, art mindful of us. So were we then, comforting Verecundus, who sorrowed, as far as friendship permitted, that our conversion was of such sort; and exhorting him to become faithful, according to his measure, namely, of a married estate; and awaiting Nebridius to follow us, which, being so near, he was all but doing: and so, lo! those days rolled by at length; for long and many they seemed, for the love I bare to the easeful liberty, that I might sing to Thee, from my inmost marrow, My heart hath said unto Thee, I have sought Thy face: Thy face, Lord, will I seek. Now was the day come wherein I was in deed to be freed of my Rhetoric Professorship, whereof in thought I was already freed. And it was done. Thou didst rescue my tongue, whence Thou hadst before rescued my heart. And I blessed Thee, rejoicing; retiring with all mine to the villa. What I there did in writing, which was now enlisted in Thy service, though still, in this breathing-time as it were, panting from the school of pride, my books may witness, as well what I debated with others, as what with myself alone, before Thee: what with Nebridius, who was absent, my Epistles bear witness. And when shall I have time to rehearse all Thy great benefits towards us at that time, especially when hasting on to yet greater mercies? For my remembrance recalls me, and pleasant is it to me, O Lord, to confess to Thee, by what inward goads Thou tamedst me; and how Thou hast evened me, lowering the mountains and hills of my high imaginations, straightening my crookedness, and smoothing my rough ways; and how Thou also subduedst the brother of my heart, Alypius, unto the name of Thy Only Begotten, our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, which he would not at first vouchsafe to have inserted in our writings. For rather would he have them savour of the lofty cedars of the Schools, which the Lord hath now broken down, than of the wholesome herbs of the Church, the antidote against serpents. Oh, in what accents spake I unto Thee, my God, when I read the Psalms of David, those faithful songs, and sounds of devotion, which allow of no swelling spirit, as yet a Catechumen, and a novice in Thy real love, resting in that villa, with Alypius a Catechumen, my mother cleaving to us, in female garb with masculine faith, with the tranquillity of age, motherly love, Christian piety! Oh, what accents did I utter unto Thee in those Psalms, and how was I by them kindled towards Thee, and on fire to rehearse them, if possible, through the whole world, against the pride of mankind! And yet they are sung through the whole world, nor can any hide himself from Thy heat. With what vehement and bitter sorrow was I angered at the Manichees! and again I pitied them, for they knew not those Sacraments, those medicines, and were mad against the antidote which might have recovered them of their madness. How I would they had then been somewhere near me, and without my knowing that they were there, could have beheld my countenance, and heard my words, when I read the fourth Psalm in that time of my rest, and how that Psalm wrought upon me: When I called, the God of my righteousness heard me; in tribulation Thou enlargedst me. Have mercy upon me, O Lord, and hear my prayer. Would that what I uttered on these words, they could hear, without my knowing whether they heard, lest they should think I spake it for their sakes! Because in truth neither should I speak the same things, nor in the same way, if I perceived that they heard and saw me; nor if I spake them would they so receive them, as when I spake by and for myself before Thee, out of the natural feelings of my soul. I trembled for fear, and again kindled with hope, and with rejoicing in Thy mercy, O Father; and all issued forth both by mine eyes and voice, when Thy good Spirit turning unto us, said, O ye sons of men, how long slow of heart? why do ye love vanity, and seek after leasing? For I had loved vanity, and sought after leasing. And Thou, O Lord, hadst already magnified Thy Holy One, raising Him from the dead, and setting Him at Thy right hand, whence from on high He should send His promise, the Comforter, the Spirit of truth. And He had already sent Him, but I knew it not; He had sent Him, because He was now magnified, rising again from the dead, and ascending into heaven. For till then, the Spirit was not yet given, because Jesus was not yet glorified. And the prophet cries out, How long, slow of heart? why do ye love vanity, and seek after leasing? Know this, that the Lord hath magnified His Holy One. He cries out, How long? He cries out, Know this: and I so long, not knowing, loved vanity, and sought after leasing: and therefore I heard and trembled, because it was spoken unto such as I remembered myself to have been. For in those phantoms which I had held for truths, was there vanity and leasing; and I spake aloud many things earnestly and forcibly, in the bitterness of my remembrance. Which would they had heard, who yet love vanity and seek after leasing! They would perchance have been troubled, and have vomited it up; and Thou wouldest hear them when they cried unto Thee; for by a true death in the flesh did He die for us, who now intercedeth unto Thee for us. I further read, Be angry, and sin not. And how was I moved, O my God, who had now learned to be angry at myself for things past, that I might not sin in time to come! Yea, to be justly angry; for that it was not another nature of a people of darkness which sinned for me, as they say who are not angry at themselves, and treasure up wrath against the day of wrath, and of the revelation of Thy just judgment. Nor were my good things now without, nor sought with the eyes of flesh in that earthly sun; for they that would have joy from without soon become vain, and waste themselves on the things seen and temporal, and in their famished thoughts do lick their very shadows. Oh that they were wearied out with their famine, and said, Who will show us good things? And we would say, and they hear, The light of Thy countenance is sealed upon us. For we are not that light which enlighteneth every man, but we are enlightened by Thee; that having been sometimes darkness, we may be light in Thee. Oh that they could see the eternal Internal, which having tasted, I was grieved that I could not show It them, so long as they brought me their heart in their eyes roving abroad from Thee, while they said, Who will show us good things? For there, where I was angry within myself in my chamber, where I was inwardly pricked, where I had sacrificed, slaying my old man and commencing the purpose of a new life, putting my trust in Thee,--there hadst Thou begun to grow sweet unto me, and hadst put gladness in my heart. And I cried out, as I read this outwardly, finding it inwardly. Nor would I be multiplied with worldly goods; wasting away time, and wasted by time; whereas I had in Thy eternal Simple Essence other corn, and wine, and oil. And with a loud cry of my heart I cried out in the next verse, O in peace, O for The Self-same! O what said he, I will lay me down and sleep, for who shall hinder us, when cometh to pass that saying which is written, Death is swallowed up in victory? And Thou surpassingly art the Self-same, Who art not changed; and in Thee is rest which forgetteth all toil, for there is none other with Thee, nor are we to seek those many other things, which are not what Thou art: but Thou, Lord, alone hast made me dwell in hope. I read, and kindled; nor found I what to do to those deaf and dead, of whom myself had been, a pestilent person, a bitter and a blind bawler against those writings, which are honied with the honey of heaven, and lightsome with Thine own light: and I was consumed with zeal at the enemies of this Scripture. When shall I recall all which passed in those holy-days? Yet neither have I forgotten, nor will I pass over the severity of Thy scourge, and the wonderful swiftness of Thy mercy. Thou didst then torment me with pain in my teeth; which when it had come to such height that I could not speak, it came into my heart to desire all my friends present to pray for me to Thee, the God of all manner of health. And this I wrote on wax, and gave it them to read. Presently so soon as with humble devotion we had bowed our knees, that pain went away. But what pain? or how went it away? I was affrighted, O my Lord, my God; for from infancy I had never experienced the like. And the power of Thy Nod was deeply conveyed to me, and rejoicing in faith, I praised Thy Name. And that faith suffered me not to be at ease about my past sins, which were not yet forgiven me by Thy baptism. The vintage-vacation ended, I gave notice to the Milanese to provide their scholars with another master to sell words to them; for that I had both made choice to serve Thee, and through my difficulty of breathing and pain in my chest was not equal to the Professorship. And by letters I signified to Thy Prelate, the holy man Ambrose, my former errors and present desires, begging his advice what of Thy Scriptures I had best read, to become readier and fitter for receiving so great grace. He recommended Isaiah the Prophet: I believe, because he above the rest is a more clear foreshower of the Gospel and of the calling of the Gentiles. But I, not understanding the first lesson in him, and imagining the whole to be like it, laid it by, to be resumed when better practised in our Lord's own words. Thence, when the time was come wherein I was to give in my name, we left the country and returned to Milan. It pleased Alypius also to be with me born again in Thee, being already clothed with the humility befitting Thy Sacraments; and a most valiant tamer of the body, so as, with unwonted venture, to wear the frozen ground of Italy with his bare feet. We joined with us the boy Adeodatus, born after the flesh, of my sin. Excellently hadst Thou made him. He was not quite fifteen, and in wit surpassed many grave and learned men. I confess unto Thee Thy gifts, O Lord my God, Creator of all, and abundantly able to reform our deformities: for I had no part in that boy, but the sin. For that we brought him up in Thy discipline, it was Thou, none else, had inspired us with it. I confess unto Thee Thy gifts. There is a book of ours entitled The Master; it is a dialogue between him and me. Thou knowest that all there ascribed to the person conversing with me were his ideas, in his sixteenth year. Much besides, and yet more admirable, I found in him. That talent struck awe into me. And who but Thou could be the workmaster of such wonders? Soon didst Thou take his life from the earth: and I now remember him without anxiety, fearing nothing for his childhood or youth, or his whole self. Him we joined with us, our contemporary in grace, to be brought up in Thy discipline: and we were baptised, and anxiety for our past life vanished from us. Nor was I sated in those days with the wondrous sweetness of considering the depth of Thy counsels concerning the salvation of mankind. How did I weep, in Thy Hymns and Canticles, touched to the quick by the voices of Thy sweet-attuned Church! The voices flowed into mine ears, and the Truth distilled into my heart, whence the affections of my devotion overflowed, and tears ran down, and happy was I therein. Not long had the Church of Milan begun to use this kind of consolation and exhortation, the brethren zealously joining with harmony of voice and hearts. For it was a year, or not much more, that Justina, mother to the Emperor Valentinian, a child, persecuted Thy servant Ambrose, in favour of her heresy, to which she was seduced by the Arians. The devout people kept watch in the Church, ready to die with their Bishop Thy servant. There my mother Thy handmaid, bearing a chief part of those anxieties and watchings, lived for prayer. We, yet unwarmed by the heat of Thy Spirit, still were stirred up by the sight of the amazed and disquieted city. Then it was first instituted that after the manner of the Eastern Churches, Hymns and Psalms should be sung, lest the people should wax faint through the tediousness of sorrow: and from that day to this the custom is retained, divers (yea, almost all) Thy congregations, throughout other parts of the world following herein. Then didst Thou by a vision discover to Thy forenamed Bishop where the bodies of Gervasius and Protasius the martyrs lay hid (whom Thou hadst in Thy secret treasury stored uncorrupted so many years), whence Thou mightest seasonably produce them to repress the fury of a woman, but an Empress. For when they were discovered and dug up, and with due honour translated to the Ambrosian Basilica, not only they who were vexed with unclean spirits (the devils confessing themselves) were cured, but a certain man who had for many years been blind, a citizen, and well known to the city, asking and hearing the reason of the people's confused joy, sprang forth desiring his guide to lead him thither. Led thither, he begged to be allowed to touch with his handkerchief the bier of Thy saints, whose death is precious in Thy sight. Which when he had done, and put to his eyes, they were forthwith opened. Thence did the fame spread, thence Thy praises glowed, shone; thence the mind of that enemy, though not turned to the soundness of believing, was yet turned back from her fury of persecuting. Thanks to Thee, O my God. Whence and whither hast Thou thus led my remembrance, that I should confess these things also unto Thee? which great though they be, I had passed by in forgetfulness. And yet then, when the odour of Thy ointments was so fragrant, did we not run after Thee. Therefore did I more weep among the singing of Thy Hymns, formerly sighing after Thee, and at length breathing in Thee, as far as the breath may enter into this our house of grass. Thou that makest men to dwell of one mind in one house, didst join with us Euodius also, a young man of our own city. Who being an officer of Court, was before us converted to Thee and baptised: and quitting his secular warfare, girded himself to Thine. We were together, about to dwell together in our devout purpose. We sought where we might serve Thee most usefully, and were together returning to Africa: whitherward being as far as Ostia, my mother departed this life. Much I omit, as hastening much. Receive my confessions and thanksgivings, O my God, for innumerable things whereof I am silent. But I will not omit whatsoever my soul would bring forth concerning that Thy handmaid, who brought me forth, both in the flesh, that I might be born to this temporal light, and in heart, that I might be born to Light eternal. Not her gifts, but Thine in her, would I speak of; for neither did she make nor educate herself. Thou createdst her; nor did her father and mother know what a one should come from them. And the sceptre of Thy Christ, the discipline of Thine only Son, in a Christian house, a good member of Thy Church, educated her in Thy fear. Yet for her good discipline was she wont to commend not so much her mother's diligence, as that of a certain decrepit maid-servant, who had carried her father when a child, as little ones used to be carried at the backs of elder girls. For which reason, and for her great age, and excellent conversation, was she, in that Christian family, well respected by its heads. Whence also the charge of her master's daughters was entrusted to her, to which she gave diligent heed, restraining them earnestly, when necessary, with a holy severity, and teaching them with a grave discretion. For, except at those hours wherein they were most temporately fed at their parents' table, she would not suffer them, though parched with thirst, to drink even water; preventing an evil custom, and adding this wholesome advice: "Ye drink water now, because you have not wine in your power; but when you come to be married, and be made mistresses of cellars and cupboards, you will scorn water, but the custom of drinking will abide." By this method of instruction, and the authority she had, she refrained the greediness of childhood, and moulded their very thirst to such an excellent moderation that what they should not, that they would not. And yet (as Thy handmaid told me her son) there had crept upon her a love of wine. For when (as the manner was) she, as though a sober maiden, was bidden by her parents to draw wine out of the hogshed, holding the vessel under the opening, before she poured the wine into the flagon, she sipped a little with the tip of her lips; for more her instinctive feelings refused. For this she did, not out of any desire of drink, but out of the exuberance of youth, whereby it boils over in mirthful freaks, which in youthful spirits are wont to be kept under by the gravity of their elders. And thus by adding to that little, daily littles (for whoso despiseth little things shall fall by little and little), she had fallen into such a habit as greedily to drink off her little cup brim-full almost of wine. Where was then that discreet old woman, and that her earnest countermanding? Would aught avail against a secret disease, if Thy healing hand, O Lord, watched not over us? Father, mother, and governors absent, Thou present, who createdst, who callest, who also by those set over us, workest something towards the salvation of our souls, what didst Thou then, O my God? how didst Thou cure her? how heal her? didst Thou not out of another soul bring forth a hard and a sharp taunt, like a lancet out of Thy secret store, and with one touch remove all that foul stuff? For a maid-servant with whom she used to go to the cellar, falling to words (as it happens) with her little mistress, when alone with her, taunted her with this fault, with most bitter insult, calling her wine-bibber. With which taunt she, stung to the quick, saw the foulness of her fault, and instantly condemned and forsook it. As flattering friends pervert, so reproachful enemies mostly correct. Yet not what by them Thou doest, but what themselves purposed, dost Thou repay them. For she in her anger sought to vex her young mistress, not to amend her; and did it in private, either for that the time and place of the quarrel so found them; or lest herself also should have anger, for discovering it thus late. But Thou, Lord, Governor of all in heaven and earth, who turnest to Thy purposes the deepest currents, and the ruled turbulence of the tide of times, didst by the very unhealthiness of one soul heal another; lest any, when he observes this, should ascribe it to his own power, even when another, whom he wished to be reformed, is reformed through words of his. Brought up thus modestly and soberly, and made subject rather by Thee to her parents, than by her parents to Thee, so soon as she was of marriageable age, being bestowed upon a husband, she served him as her lord; and did her diligence to win him unto Thee, preaching Thee unto him by her conversation; by which Thou ornamentedst her, making her reverently amiable, and admirable unto her husband. And she so endured the wronging of her bed as never to have any quarrel with her husband thereon. For she looked for Thy mercy upon him, that believing in Thee, he might be made chaste. But besides this, he was fervid, as in his affections, so in anger: but she had learnt not to resist an angry husband, not in deed only, but not even in word. Only when he was smoothed and tranquil, and in a temper to receive it, she would give an account of her actions, if haply he had overhastily taken offence. In a word, while many matrons, who had milder husbands, yet bore even in their faces marks of shame, would in familiar talk blame their husbands' lives, she would blame their tongues, giving them, as in jest, earnest advice: "That from the time they heard the marriage writings read to them, they should account them as indentures, whereby they were made servants; and so, remembering their condition, ought not to set themselves up against their lords." And when they, knowing what a choleric husband she endured, marvelled that it had never been heard, nor by any token perceived, that Patricius had beaten his wife, or that there had been any domestic difference between them, even for one day, and confidentially asking the reason, she taught them her practice above mentioned. Those wives who observed it found the good, and returned thanks; those who observed it not, found no relief, and suffered. Her mother-in-law also, at first by whisperings of evil servants incensed against her, she so overcame by observance and persevering endurance and meekness, that she of her own accord discovered to her son the meddling tongues whereby the domestic peace betwixt her and her daughter-in-law had been disturbed, asking him to correct them. Then, when in compliance with his mother, and for the well-ordering of the family, he had with stripes corrected those discovered, at her will who had discovered them, she promised the like reward to any who, to please her, should speak ill of her daughter-in-law to her: and none now venturing, they lived together with a remarkable sweetness of mutual kindness. This great gift also thou bestowedst, O my God, my mercy, upon that good handmaid of Thine, in whose womb Thou createdst me, that between any disagreeing and discordant parties where she was able, she showed herself such a peacemaker, that hearing on both sides most bitter things, such as swelling and indigested choler uses to break out into, when the crudities of enmities are breathed out in sour discourses to a present friend against an absent enemy, she never would disclose aught of the one unto the other, but what might tend to their reconcilement. A small good this might appear to me, did I not to my grief know numberless persons, who through some horrible and wide-spreading contagion of sin, not only disclose to persons mutually angered things said in anger, but add withal things never spoken, whereas to humane humanity, it ought to seem a light thing not to torment or increase ill will by ill words, unless one study withal by good words to quench it. Such was she, Thyself, her most inward Instructor, teaching her in the school of

sons

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

words as it were fixed in our entrails: and the examples of Thy servants, whom for black Thou hadst made bright, and for dead, alive, being piled together in the receptacle of our thoughts, kindled and burned up that our heavy torpor, that we should not sink down to the abyss; and they fired us so vehemently, that all the blasts of subtle tongues from gainsayers might only inflame us the more fiercely, not extinguish us. Nevertheless, because for Thy Name's sake which Thou hast hallowed throughout the earth, this our vow and purpose might also find some to commend it, it seemed like ostentation not to wait for the vacation now so near, but to quit beforehand a public profession, which was before the eyes of all; so that all looking on this act of mine, and observing how near was the time of vintage which I wished to anticipate, would talk much of me, as if I had desired to appear some great one. And what end had it served me, that people should repute and dispute upon my purpose, and that our good should be evil spoken of. Moreover, it had at first troubled me that in this very summer my lungs began to give way, amid too great literary labour, and to breathe deeply with difficulty, and by the pain in my chest to show that they were injured, and to refuse any full or lengthened speaking; this had troubled me, for it almost constrained me of necessity to lay down that burden of teaching, or, if I could be cured and recover, at least to intermit it. But when the full wish for leisure, that I might see how that Thou art the Lord, arose, and was fixed, in me; my God, Thou knowest, I began even to rejoice that I had this secondary, and that no feigned, excuse, which might something moderate the offence taken by those who, for their sons' sake, wished me never to have the freedom of Thy sons. Full then of such joy, I endured till that interval of time were run; it may have been some twenty days, yet they were endured manfully; endured, for the covetousness which aforetime bore a part of this heavy business, had left me, and I remained alone, and had been overwhelmed, had not patience taken its place. Perchance, some of Thy servants, my brethren, may say that I sinned in this, that with a heart fully set on Thy service, I suffered myself to sit even one hour in the chair of lies. Nor would I be contentious. But hast not Thou, O most merciful Lord, pardoned and remitted this sin also, with my other most horrible and deadly sins, in the holy water? Verecundus was worn down with care about this our blessedness, for that being held back by bonds, whereby he was most straitly bound, he saw that he should be severed from us. For himself was not yet a Christian, his wife one of the faithful; and yet hereby, more rigidly than by any other chain, was he let and hindered from the journey which we had now essayed. For he would not, he said, be a Christian on any other terms than on those he could not. However, he offered us courteously to remain at his country-house so long as we should stay there. Thou, O Lord, shalt reward him in the resurrection of the just, seeing Thou hast already given him the lot of the righteous. For although, in our absence, being now at Rome, he was seized with bodily sickness, and therein being made a Christian, and one of the faithful, he departed this life; yet hadst Thou mercy not on him only, but on us also: lest remembering the exceeding kindness of our friend towards us, yet unable to number him among Thy flock, we should be agonised with intolerable sorrow. Thanks unto Thee, our God, we are Thine: Thy suggestions and consolations tell us, Faithful in promises, Thou now requitest Verecundus for his country-house of Cassiacum, where from the fever of the world we reposed in Thee, with the eternal freshness of Thy Paradise: for that Thou hast forgiven him his sins upon earth, in that rich mountain, that mountain which yieldeth milk, Thine own mountain. He then had at that time sorrow, but Nebridius joy. For although he also, not being yet a Christian, had fallen into the pit of that most pernicious error, believing the flesh of Thy Son to be a phantom: yet emerging thence, he believed as we did; not as yet endued with any Sacraments of Thy Church, but a most ardent searcher out of truth. Whom, not long after our conversion and regeneration by Thy Baptism, being also a faithful member of the Church Catholic, and serving Thee in perfect chastity and continence amongst his people in Africa, his whole house having through him first been made Christian, didst Thou release from the flesh; and now he lives in Abraham's bosom. Whatever that be, which is signified by that bosom, there lives my Nebridius, my sweet friend, and Thy child, O Lord, adopted of a freed man: there he liveth. For what other place is there for such a soul? There he liveth, whereof he asked much of me, a poor inexperienced man. Now lays he not his ear to my mouth, but his spiritual mouth unto Thy fountain, and drinketh as much as he can receive, wisdom in proportion to his thirst, endlessly happy. Nor do I think that he is so inebriated therewith, as to forget me; seeing Thou, Lord, Whom he drinketh, art mindful of us. So were we then, comforting Verecundus, who sorrowed, as far as friendship permitted, that our conversion was of such sort; and exhorting him to become faithful, according to his measure, namely, of a married estate; and awaiting Nebridius to follow us, which, being so near, he was all but doing: and so, lo! those days rolled by at length; for long and many they seemed, for the love I bare to the easeful liberty, that I might sing to Thee, from my inmost marrow, My heart hath said unto Thee, I have sought Thy face: Thy face, Lord, will I seek. Now was the day come wherein I was in deed to be freed of my Rhetoric Professorship, whereof in thought I was already freed. And it was done. Thou didst rescue my tongue, whence Thou hadst before rescued my heart. And I blessed Thee, rejoicing; retiring with all mine to the villa. What I there did in writing, which was now enlisted in Thy service, though still, in this breathing-time as it were, panting from the school of pride, my books may witness, as well what I debated with others, as what with myself alone, before Thee: what with Nebridius, who was absent, my Epistles bear witness. And when shall I have time to rehearse all Thy great benefits towards us at that time, especially when hasting on to yet greater mercies? For my remembrance recalls me, and pleasant is it to me, O Lord, to confess to Thee, by what inward goads Thou tamedst me; and how Thou hast evened me, lowering the mountains and hills of my high imaginations, straightening my crookedness, and smoothing my rough ways; and how Thou also subduedst the brother of my heart, Alypius, unto the name of Thy Only Begotten, our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, which he would not at first vouchsafe to have inserted in our writings. For rather would he have them savour of the lofty cedars of the Schools, which the Lord hath now broken down, than of the wholesome herbs of the Church, the antidote against serpents. Oh, in what accents spake I unto Thee, my God, when I read the Psalms of David, those faithful songs, and sounds of devotion, which allow of no swelling spirit, as yet a Catechumen, and a novice in Thy real love, resting in that villa, with Alypius a Catechumen, my mother cleaving to us, in female garb with masculine faith, with the tranquillity of age, motherly love, Christian piety! Oh, what accents did I utter unto Thee in those Psalms, and how was I by them kindled towards Thee, and on fire to rehearse them, if possible, through the whole world, against the pride of mankind! And yet they are sung through the whole world, nor can any hide himself from Thy heat. With what vehement and bitter sorrow was I angered at the Manichees! and again I pitied them, for they knew not those Sacraments, those medicines, and were mad against the antidote which might have recovered them of their madness. How I would they had then been somewhere near me, and without my knowing that they were there, could have beheld my countenance, and heard my words, when I read the fourth Psalm in that time of my rest, and how that Psalm wrought upon me: When I called, the God of my righteousness heard me; in tribulation Thou enlargedst me. Have mercy upon me, O Lord, and hear my prayer. Would that what I uttered on these words, they could hear, without my knowing whether they heard, lest they should think I spake it for their sakes! Because in truth neither should I speak the same things, nor in the same way, if I perceived that they heard and saw me; nor if I spake them would they so receive them, as when I spake by and for myself before Thee, out of the natural feelings of my soul. I trembled for fear, and again kindled with hope, and with rejoicing in Thy mercy, O Father; and all issued forth both by mine eyes and voice, when Thy good Spirit turning unto us, said, O ye sons of men, how long slow of heart? why do ye love vanity, and seek after leasing? For I had loved vanity, and sought after leasing. And Thou, O Lord, hadst already magnified Thy Holy One, raising Him from the dead, and setting Him at Thy right hand, whence from on high He should send His promise, the Comforter, the Spirit of truth. And He had already sent Him, but I knew it not; He had sent Him, because He was now magnified, rising again from the dead, and ascending into heaven. For till then, the Spirit was not yet given, because Jesus was not yet glorified. And the prophet cries out, How long, slow of heart? why do ye love vanity, and seek after leasing? Know this, that the Lord hath magnified His Holy One. He cries out, How long? He cries out, Know this: and I so long, not knowing, loved vanity, and sought after leasing: and therefore I heard and trembled, because it was spoken unto such as I remembered myself to have been. For in those phantoms which I had held for truths, was there vanity and leasing; and I spake aloud many things earnestly and forcibly, in the bitterness of my remembrance. Which would they had heard, who yet love vanity and seek after leasing! They would perchance have been troubled, and have vomited it up; and Thou wouldest hear them when they cried unto Thee; for by a true death in the flesh did He die for us, who now intercedeth unto Thee for us. I further read, Be angry, and sin not. And how was I moved, O my God, who had now learned to be angry at myself for things past, that I might not sin in time to come! Yea, to be justly angry; for that it was not another nature of a people of darkness which sinned for me, as they say who are not angry at themselves, and treasure up wrath against the day of wrath, and of the revelation of Thy just judgment. Nor were my good things now without, nor sought with the eyes of flesh in that earthly sun; for they that would have joy from without soon become vain, and waste themselves on the things seen and temporal, and in their famished thoughts do lick their very shadows. Oh that they were wearied out with their famine, and said, Who will show us good things? And we would say, and they hear, The light of Thy countenance is sealed upon us. For we are not that light which enlighteneth every man, but we are enlightened by Thee; that having been sometimes darkness, we may be light in Thee. Oh that they could see the eternal Internal, which having tasted, I was grieved that I could not show It them, so long as they brought me their heart in their eyes roving abroad from Thee, while they said, Who will show us good things? For there, where I was angry within myself in my chamber, where I was inwardly pricked, where I had sacrificed, slaying my old man and commencing the purpose of a new life, putting my trust in Thee,--there hadst Thou begun to grow sweet unto me, and hadst put gladness in my heart. And I cried out, as I read this outwardly, finding it inwardly. Nor would I be multiplied with worldly goods; wasting away time, and wasted by time; whereas I had in Thy eternal Simple Essence other corn, and wine, and oil. And with a loud cry of my heart I cried out in the next verse, O in peace, O for The Self-same! O what said he, I will lay me down and sleep, for who shall hinder us, when cometh to pass that saying which is written, Death is swallowed up in victory? And Thou surpassingly art the Self-same, Who art not changed; and in Thee is rest which forgetteth all toil, for there is none other with Thee, nor are we to seek those many other things, which are not what Thou art: but Thou, Lord, alone hast made me dwell in hope. I read, and kindled; nor found I what to do to those deaf and dead, of whom myself had been, a pestilent person, a bitter and a blind bawler against those writings, which are honied with the honey of heaven, and lightsome with Thine own light: and I was consumed with zeal at the enemies of this Scripture. When shall I recall all which passed in those holy-days? Yet neither have I forgotten, nor will I pass over the severity of Thy scourge, and the wonderful swiftness of Thy mercy. Thou didst then torment me with pain in my teeth; which when it had come to such height that I could not speak, it came into my heart to desire all my friends present to pray for me to Thee, the God of all manner of health. And this I wrote on wax, and gave it them to read. Presently so soon as with humble devotion we had bowed our knees, that pain went away. But what pain? or how went it away? I was affrighted, O my Lord, my God; for from infancy I had never experienced the like. And the power of Thy Nod was deeply conveyed to me, and rejoicing in faith, I praised Thy Name. And that faith suffered me not to be at ease about my past sins, which were not yet forgiven me by Thy baptism. The vintage-vacation ended, I gave notice to the Milanese to provide their scholars with another master to sell words to them; for that I had both made choice to serve Thee, and through my difficulty of breathing and pain in my chest was not equal to the Professorship. And by letters I signified to Thy Prelate, the holy man Ambrose, my former errors and present desires, begging his advice what of Thy Scriptures I had best read, to become readier and fitter for receiving so great grace. He recommended Isaiah the Prophet: I believe, because he above the rest is a more clear foreshower of the Gospel and of the calling of the Gentiles. But I, not understanding the first lesson in him, and imagining the whole to be like it, laid it by, to be resumed when better practised in our Lord's own words. Thence, when the time was come wherein I was to give in my name, we left the country and returned to Milan. It pleased Alypius also to be with me born again in Thee, being already clothed with the humility befitting Thy Sacraments; and a most valiant tamer of the body, so as, with unwonted venture, to wear the frozen ground of Italy with his bare feet. We joined with us the boy Adeodatus, born after the flesh, of my sin. Excellently hadst Thou made him. He was not quite fifteen, and in wit surpassed many grave and learned men. I confess unto Thee Thy gifts, O Lord my God, Creator of all, and abundantly able to reform our deformities: for I had no part in that boy, but the sin. For that we brought him up in Thy discipline, it was Thou, none else, had inspired us with it. I confess unto Thee Thy gifts. There is a book of ours entitled The Master; it is a dialogue between him and me. Thou knowest that all there ascribed to the person conversing with me were his ideas, in his sixteenth year. Much besides, and yet more admirable, I found in him. That talent struck awe into me. And who but Thou could be the workmaster of such wonders? Soon didst Thou take his life from the earth: and I now remember him without anxiety, fearing nothing for his childhood or youth, or his whole self. Him we joined with us, our contemporary in grace, to be brought up in Thy discipline: and we were baptised, and anxiety for our past life vanished from us. Nor was I sated in those days with the wondrous sweetness of considering the depth of Thy counsels concerning the salvation of mankind. How did I weep, in Thy Hymns and Canticles, touched to the quick by the voices of Thy sweet-attuned Church! The voices flowed into mine ears, and the Truth distilled into my heart, whence the affections of my devotion overflowed, and tears ran down, and happy was I therein. Not long had the Church of Milan begun to use this kind of consolation and exhortation, the brethren zealously joining with harmony of voice and hearts. For it was a year, or not much more, that Justina, mother to the Emperor Valentinian, a child, persecuted Thy servant Ambrose, in favour of her heresy, to which she was seduced by the Arians. The devout people kept watch in the Church, ready to die with their Bishop Thy servant. There my mother Thy handmaid, bearing a chief part of those anxieties and watchings, lived for prayer. We, yet unwarmed by the heat of Thy Spirit, still were stirred up by the sight of the amazed and disquieted city. Then it was first instituted that after the manner of the Eastern Churches, Hymns and Psalms should be sung, lest the people should wax faint through the tediousness of sorrow: and from that day to this the custom is retained, divers (yea, almost all) Thy congregations, throughout other parts of the world following herein. Then didst Thou by a vision discover to Thy forenamed Bishop where the bodies of Gervasius and Protasius the martyrs lay hid (whom Thou hadst in Thy secret treasury stored uncorrupted so many years), whence Thou mightest seasonably produce them to repress the fury of a woman, but an Empress. For when they were discovered and dug up, and with due honour translated to the Ambrosian Basilica, not only they who were vexed with unclean spirits (the devils confessing themselves) were cured, but a certain man who had for many years been blind, a citizen, and well known to the city, asking and hearing the reason of the people's confused joy, sprang forth desiring his guide to lead him thither. Led thither, he begged to be allowed to touch with his handkerchief the bier of Thy saints, whose death is precious in Thy sight. Which when he had done, and put to his eyes, they were forthwith opened. Thence did the fame spread, thence Thy praises glowed, shone; thence the mind of that enemy, though not turned to the soundness of believing, was yet turned back from her fury of persecuting. Thanks to Thee, O my God. Whence and whither hast Thou thus led my remembrance, that I should confess these things also unto Thee? which great though they be, I had passed by in forgetfulness. And yet then, when the odour of Thy ointments was so fragrant, did we not run after Thee. Therefore did I more weep among the singing of Thy Hymns, formerly sighing after Thee, and at length breathing in Thee, as far as the breath may enter into this our house of grass. Thou that makest men to dwell of one mind in one house, didst join with us Euodius also, a young man of our own city. Who being an officer of Court, was before us converted to Thee and baptised: and quitting his secular warfare, girded himself to Thine. We were together, about to dwell together in our devout purpose. We sought where we might serve Thee most usefully, and were together returning to Africa: whitherward being as far as Ostia, my mother departed this life. Much I omit, as hastening much. Receive my confessions and thanksgivings, O my God, for innumerable things whereof I am silent. But I will not omit whatsoever my soul would bring forth concerning that Thy handmaid, who brought me forth, both in the flesh, that I might be born to this temporal light, and in heart, that I might be born to Light eternal. Not her gifts, but Thine in her, would I speak of; for neither did she make nor educate herself. Thou createdst her; nor did her father and mother know what a one should come from them. And the sceptre of Thy Christ, the discipline of Thine only Son, in a Christian house, a good member of Thy Church, educated her in Thy fear. Yet for her good discipline was she wont to commend not so much her mother's diligence, as that of a certain decrepit maid-servant, who had carried her father when a child, as little ones used to be carried at the backs of elder girls. For which reason, and for her great age, and excellent conversation, was she, in that Christian family, well respected by its heads. Whence also the charge of her master's daughters was entrusted to her, to which she gave diligent heed, restraining them earnestly, when necessary, with a holy severity, and teaching them with a grave discretion. For, except at those hours wherein they were most temporately fed at their parents' table, she would not suffer them, though parched with thirst, to drink even water; preventing an evil custom, and adding this wholesome advice: "Ye drink water now, because you have not wine in your power; but when you come to be married, and be made mistresses of cellars and cupboards, you will scorn water, but the custom of drinking will abide." By this method of instruction, and the authority she had, she refrained the greediness of childhood, and moulded their very thirst to such an excellent moderation that what they should not, that they would not. And yet (as Thy handmaid told me her son) there had crept upon her a love of wine. For when (as the manner was) she, as though a sober maiden, was bidden by her parents to draw wine out of the hogshed, holding the vessel under the opening, before she poured the wine into the flagon, she sipped a little with the tip of her lips; for more her instinctive feelings refused. For this she did, not out of any desire of drink, but out of the exuberance of youth, whereby it boils over in mirthful freaks, which in youthful spirits are wont to be kept under by the gravity of their elders. And thus by adding to that little, daily littles (for whoso despiseth little things shall fall by little and little), she had fallen into such a habit as greedily to drink off her little cup brim-full almost of wine. Where was then that discreet old woman, and that her earnest countermanding? Would aught avail against a secret disease, if Thy healing hand, O Lord, watched not over us? Father, mother, and governors absent, Thou present, who createdst, who callest, who also by those set over us, workest something towards the salvation of our souls, what didst Thou then, O my God? how didst Thou cure her? how heal her? didst Thou not out of another soul bring forth a hard and a sharp taunt, like a lancet out of Thy secret store, and with one touch remove all that foul stuff? For a maid-servant with whom she used to go to the cellar, falling to words (as it happens) with her little mistress, when alone with her, taunted her with this fault, with most bitter insult, calling her wine-bibber. With which taunt she, stung to the quick, saw the foulness of her fault, and instantly condemned and forsook it. As flattering friends pervert, so reproachful enemies mostly correct. Yet not what by them Thou doest, but what themselves purposed, dost Thou repay them. For she in her anger sought to vex her young mistress, not to amend her; and did it in private, either for that the time and place of the quarrel so found them; or lest herself also should have anger, for discovering it thus late. But Thou, Lord, Governor of all in heaven and earth, who turnest to Thy purposes the deepest currents, and the ruled turbulence of the tide of times, didst by the very unhealthiness of one soul heal another; lest any, when he observes this, should ascribe it to his own power, even when another, whom he wished to be reformed, is reformed through words of his. Brought up thus modestly and soberly, and made subject rather by Thee to her parents, than by her parents to Thee, so soon as she was of marriageable age, being bestowed upon a husband, she served him as her lord; and did her diligence to win him unto Thee, preaching Thee unto him by her conversation; by which Thou ornamentedst her, making her reverently amiable, and admirable unto her husband. And she so endured the wronging of her bed as never to have any quarrel with her husband thereon. For she looked for Thy mercy upon him, that believing in Thee, he might be made chaste. But besides this, he was fervid, as in his affections, so in anger: but she had learnt not to resist an angry husband, not in deed only, but not even in word. Only when he was smoothed and tranquil, and in a temper to receive it, she would give an account of her actions, if haply he had overhastily taken offence. In a word, while many matrons, who had milder husbands, yet bore even in their faces marks of shame, would in familiar talk blame their husbands' lives, she would blame their tongues, giving them, as in jest, earnest advice: "That from the time they heard the marriage writings read to them, they should account them as indentures, whereby they were made servants; and so, remembering their condition, ought not to set themselves up against their lords." And when they, knowing what a choleric husband she endured, marvelled that it had never been heard, nor by any token perceived, that Patricius had beaten his wife, or that there had been any domestic difference between them, even for one day, and confidentially asking the reason, she taught them her practice above mentioned. Those wives who observed it found the good, and returned thanks; those who observed it not, found no relief, and suffered. Her mother-in-law also, at first by whisperings of evil servants incensed against her, she so overcame by observance and persevering endurance and meekness, that she of her own accord discovered to her son the meddling tongues whereby the domestic peace betwixt her and her daughter-in-law had been disturbed, asking him to correct them. Then, when in compliance with his mother, and for the well-ordering of the family, he had with stripes corrected those discovered, at her will who had discovered them, she promised the like reward to any who, to please her, should speak ill of her daughter-in-law to her: and none now venturing, they lived together with a remarkable sweetness of mutual kindness. This great gift also thou bestowedst, O my God, my mercy, upon that good handmaid of Thine, in whose womb Thou createdst me, that between any disagreeing and discordant parties where she was able, she showed herself such a peacemaker, that hearing on both sides most bitter things, such as swelling and indigested choler uses to break out into, when the crudities of enmities are breathed out in sour discourses to a present friend against an absent enemy, she never would disclose aught of the one unto the other, but what might tend to their reconcilement. A small good this might appear to me, did I not to my grief know numberless persons, who through some horrible and wide-spreading contagion of sin, not only disclose to persons mutually angered things said in anger, but add withal things never spoken, whereas to humane humanity, it ought to seem a light thing not to torment or increase ill will by ill words, unless one study withal by good words to quench it. Such was she, Thyself, her most inward Instructor, teaching her in the school of

if

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

words as it were fixed in our entrails: and the examples of Thy servants, whom for black Thou hadst made bright, and for dead, alive, being piled together in the receptacle of our thoughts, kindled and burned up that our heavy torpor, that we should not sink down to the abyss; and they fired us so vehemently, that all the blasts of subtle tongues from gainsayers might only inflame us the more fiercely, not extinguish us. Nevertheless, because for Thy Name's sake which Thou hast hallowed throughout the earth, this our vow and purpose might also find some to commend it, it seemed like ostentation not to wait for the vacation now so near, but to quit beforehand a public profession, which was before the eyes of all; so that all looking on this act of mine, and observing how near was the time of vintage which I wished to anticipate, would talk much of me, as if I had desired to appear some great one. And what end had it served me, that people should repute and dispute upon my purpose, and that our good should be evil spoken of. Moreover, it had at first troubled me that in this very summer my lungs began to give way, amid too great literary labour, and to breathe deeply with difficulty, and by the pain in my chest to show that they were injured, and to refuse any full or lengthened speaking; this had troubled me, for it almost constrained me of necessity to lay down that burden of teaching, or, if I could be cured and recover, at least to intermit it. But when the full wish for leisure, that I might see how that Thou art the Lord, arose, and was fixed, in me; my God, Thou knowest, I began even to rejoice that I had this secondary, and that no feigned, excuse, which might something moderate the offence taken by those who, for their sons' sake, wished me never to have the freedom of Thy sons. Full then of such joy, I endured till that interval of time were run; it may have been some twenty days, yet they were endured manfully; endured, for the covetousness which aforetime bore a part of this heavy business, had left me, and I remained alone, and had been overwhelmed, had not patience taken its place. Perchance, some of Thy servants, my brethren, may say that I sinned in this, that with a heart fully set on Thy service, I suffered myself to sit even one hour in the chair of lies. Nor would I be contentious. But hast not Thou, O most merciful Lord, pardoned and remitted this sin also, with my other most horrible and deadly sins, in the holy water? Verecundus was worn down with care about this our blessedness, for that being held back by bonds, whereby he was most straitly bound, he saw that he should be severed from us. For himself was not yet a Christian, his wife one of the faithful; and yet hereby, more rigidly than by any other chain, was he let and hindered from the journey which we had now essayed. For he would not, he said, be a Christian on any other terms than on those he could not. However, he offered us courteously to remain at his country-house so long as we should stay there. Thou, O Lord, shalt reward him in the resurrection of the just, seeing Thou hast already given him the lot of the righteous. For although, in our absence, being now at Rome, he was seized with bodily sickness, and therein being made a Christian, and one of the faithful, he departed this life; yet hadst Thou mercy not on him only, but on us also: lest remembering the exceeding kindness of our friend towards us, yet unable to number him among Thy flock, we should be agonised with intolerable sorrow. Thanks unto Thee, our God, we are Thine: Thy suggestions and consolations tell us, Faithful in promises, Thou now requitest Verecundus for his country-house of Cassiacum, where from the fever of the world we reposed in Thee, with the eternal freshness of Thy Paradise: for that Thou hast forgiven him his sins upon earth, in that rich mountain, that mountain which yieldeth milk, Thine own mountain. He then had at that time sorrow, but Nebridius joy. For although he also, not being yet a Christian, had fallen into the pit of that most pernicious error, believing the flesh of Thy Son to be a phantom: yet emerging thence, he believed as we did; not as yet endued with any Sacraments of Thy Church, but a most ardent searcher out of truth. Whom, not long after our conversion and regeneration by Thy Baptism, being also a faithful member of the Church Catholic, and serving Thee in perfect chastity and continence amongst his people in Africa, his whole house having through him first been made Christian, didst Thou release from the flesh; and now he lives in Abraham's bosom. Whatever that be, which is signified by that bosom, there lives my Nebridius, my sweet friend, and Thy child, O Lord, adopted of a freed man: there he liveth. For what other place is there for such a soul? There he liveth, whereof he asked much of me, a poor inexperienced man. Now lays he not his ear to my mouth, but his spiritual mouth unto Thy fountain, and drinketh as much as he can receive, wisdom in proportion to his thirst, endlessly happy. Nor do I think that he is so inebriated therewith, as to forget me; seeing Thou, Lord, Whom he drinketh, art mindful of us. So were we then, comforting Verecundus, who sorrowed, as far as friendship permitted, that our conversion was of such sort; and exhorting him to become faithful, according to his measure, namely, of a married estate; and awaiting Nebridius to follow us, which, being so near, he was all but doing: and so, lo! those days rolled by at length; for long and many they seemed, for the love I bare to the easeful liberty, that I might sing to Thee, from my inmost marrow, My heart hath said unto Thee, I have sought Thy face: Thy face, Lord, will I seek. Now was the day come wherein I was in deed to be freed of my Rhetoric Professorship, whereof in thought I was already freed. And it was done. Thou didst rescue my tongue, whence Thou hadst before rescued my heart. And I blessed Thee, rejoicing; retiring with all mine to the villa. What I there did in writing, which was now enlisted in Thy service, though still, in this breathing-time as it were, panting from the school of pride, my books may witness, as well what I debated with others, as what with myself alone, before Thee: what with Nebridius, who was absent, my Epistles bear witness. And when shall I have time to rehearse all Thy great benefits towards us at that time, especially when hasting on to yet greater mercies? For my remembrance recalls me, and pleasant is it to me, O Lord, to confess to Thee, by what inward goads Thou tamedst me; and how Thou hast evened me, lowering the mountains and hills of my high imaginations, straightening my crookedness, and smoothing my rough ways; and how Thou also subduedst the brother of my heart, Alypius, unto the name of Thy Only Begotten, our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, which he would not at first vouchsafe to have inserted in our writings. For rather would he have them savour of the lofty cedars of the Schools, which the Lord hath now broken down, than of the wholesome herbs of the Church, the antidote against serpents. Oh, in what accents spake I unto Thee, my God, when I read the Psalms of David, those faithful songs, and sounds of devotion, which allow of no swelling spirit, as yet a Catechumen, and a novice in Thy real love, resting in that villa, with Alypius a Catechumen, my mother cleaving to us, in female garb with masculine faith, with the tranquillity of age, motherly love, Christian piety! Oh, what accents did I utter unto Thee in those Psalms, and how was I by them kindled towards Thee, and on fire to rehearse them, if possible, through the whole world, against the pride of mankind! And yet they are sung through the whole world, nor can any hide himself from Thy heat. With what vehement and bitter sorrow was I angered at the Manichees! and again I pitied them, for they knew not those Sacraments, those medicines, and were mad against the antidote which might have recovered them of their madness. How I would they had then been somewhere near me, and without my knowing that they were there, could have beheld my countenance, and heard my words, when I read the fourth Psalm in that time of my rest, and how that Psalm wrought upon me: When I called, the God of my righteousness heard me; in tribulation Thou enlargedst me. Have mercy upon me, O Lord, and hear my prayer. Would that what I uttered on these words, they could hear, without my knowing whether they heard, lest they should think I spake it for their sakes! Because in truth neither should I speak the same things, nor in the same way, if I perceived that they heard and saw me; nor if I spake them would they so receive them, as when I spake by and for myself before Thee, out of the natural feelings of my soul. I trembled for fear, and again kindled with hope, and with rejoicing in Thy mercy, O Father; and all issued forth both by mine eyes and voice, when Thy good Spirit turning unto us, said, O ye sons of men, how long slow of heart? why do ye love vanity, and seek after leasing? For I had loved vanity, and sought after leasing. And Thou, O Lord, hadst already magnified Thy Holy One, raising Him from the dead, and setting Him at Thy right hand, whence from on high He should send His promise, the Comforter, the Spirit of truth. And He had already sent Him, but I knew it not; He had sent Him, because He was now magnified, rising again from the dead, and ascending into heaven. For till then, the Spirit was not yet given, because Jesus was not yet glorified. And the prophet cries out, How long, slow of heart? why do ye love vanity, and seek after leasing? Know this, that the Lord hath magnified His Holy One. He cries out, How long? He cries out, Know this: and I so long, not knowing, loved vanity, and sought after leasing: and therefore I heard and trembled, because it was spoken unto such as I remembered myself to have been. For in those phantoms which I had held for truths, was there vanity and leasing; and I spake aloud many things earnestly and forcibly, in the bitterness of my remembrance. Which would they had heard, who yet love vanity and seek after leasing! They would perchance have been troubled, and have vomited it up; and Thou wouldest hear them when they cried unto Thee; for by a true death in the flesh did He die for us, who now intercedeth unto Thee for us. I further read, Be angry, and sin not. And how was I moved, O my God, who had now learned to be angry at myself for things past, that I might not sin in time to come! Yea, to be justly angry; for that it was not another nature of a people of darkness which sinned for me, as they say who are not angry at themselves, and treasure up wrath against the day of wrath, and of the revelation of Thy just judgment. Nor were my good things now without, nor sought with the eyes of flesh in that earthly sun; for they that would have joy from without soon become vain, and waste themselves on the things seen and temporal, and in their famished thoughts do lick their very shadows. Oh that they were wearied out with their famine, and said, Who will show us good things? And we would say, and they hear, The light of Thy countenance is sealed upon us. For we are not that light which enlighteneth every man, but we are enlightened by Thee; that having been sometimes darkness, we may be light in Thee. Oh that they could see the eternal Internal, which having tasted, I was grieved that I could not show It them, so long as they brought me their heart in their eyes roving abroad from Thee, while they said, Who will show us good things? For there, where I was angry within myself in my chamber, where I was inwardly pricked, where I had sacrificed, slaying my old man and commencing the purpose of a new life, putting my trust in Thee,--there hadst Thou begun to grow sweet unto me, and hadst put gladness in my heart. And I cried out, as I read this outwardly, finding it inwardly. Nor would I be multiplied with worldly goods; wasting away time, and wasted by time; whereas I had in Thy eternal Simple Essence other corn, and wine, and oil. And with a loud cry of my heart I cried out in the next verse, O in peace, O for The Self-same! O what said he, I will lay me down and sleep, for who shall hinder us, when cometh to pass that saying which is written, Death is swallowed up in victory? And Thou surpassingly art the Self-same, Who art not changed; and in Thee is rest which forgetteth all toil, for there is none other with Thee, nor are we to seek those many other things, which are not what Thou art: but Thou, Lord, alone hast made me dwell in hope. I read, and kindled; nor found I what to do to those deaf and dead, of whom myself had been, a pestilent person, a bitter and a blind bawler against those writings, which are honied with the honey of heaven, and lightsome with Thine own light: and I was consumed with zeal at the enemies of this Scripture. When shall I recall all which passed in those holy-days? Yet neither have I forgotten, nor will I pass over the severity of Thy scourge, and the wonderful swiftness of Thy mercy. Thou didst then torment me with pain in my teeth; which when it had come to such height that I could not speak, it came into my heart to desire all my friends present to pray for me to Thee, the God of all manner of health. And this I wrote on wax, and gave it them to read. Presently so soon as with humble devotion we had bowed our knees, that pain went away. But what pain? or how went it away? I was affrighted, O my Lord, my God; for from infancy I had never experienced the like. And the power of Thy Nod was deeply conveyed to me, and rejoicing in faith, I praised Thy Name. And that faith suffered me not to be at ease about my past sins, which were not yet forgiven me by Thy baptism. The vintage-vacation ended, I gave notice to the Milanese to provide their scholars with another master to sell words to them; for that I had both made choice to serve Thee, and through my difficulty of breathing and pain in my chest was not equal to the Professorship. And by letters I signified to Thy Prelate, the holy man Ambrose, my former errors and present desires, begging his advice what of Thy Scriptures I had best read, to become readier and fitter for receiving so great grace. He recommended Isaiah the Prophet: I believe, because he above the rest is a more clear foreshower of the Gospel and of the calling of the Gentiles. But I, not understanding the first lesson in him, and imagining the whole to be like it, laid it by, to be resumed when better practised in our Lord's own words. Thence, when the time was come wherein I was to give in my name, we left the country and returned to Milan. It pleased Alypius also to be with me born again in Thee, being already clothed with the humility befitting Thy Sacraments; and a most valiant tamer of the body, so as, with unwonted venture, to wear the frozen ground of Italy with his bare feet. We joined with us the boy Adeodatus, born after the flesh, of my sin. Excellently hadst Thou made him. He was not quite fifteen, and in wit surpassed many grave and learned men. I confess unto Thee Thy gifts, O Lord my God, Creator of all, and abundantly able to reform our deformities: for I had no part in that boy, but the sin. For that we brought him up in Thy discipline, it was Thou, none else, had inspired us with it. I confess unto Thee Thy gifts. There is a book of ours entitled The Master; it is a dialogue between him and me. Thou knowest that all there ascribed to the person conversing with me were his ideas, in his sixteenth year. Much besides, and yet more admirable, I found in him. That talent struck awe into me. And who but Thou could be the workmaster of such wonders? Soon didst Thou take his life from the earth: and I now remember him without anxiety, fearing nothing for his childhood or youth, or his whole self. Him we joined with us, our contemporary in grace, to be brought up in Thy discipline: and we were baptised, and anxiety for our past life vanished from us. Nor was I sated in those days with the wondrous sweetness of considering the depth of Thy counsels concerning the salvation of mankind. How did I weep, in Thy Hymns and Canticles, touched to the quick by the voices of Thy sweet-attuned Church! The voices flowed into mine ears, and the Truth distilled into my heart, whence the affections of my devotion overflowed, and tears ran down, and happy was I therein. Not long had the Church of Milan begun to use this kind of consolation and exhortation, the brethren zealously joining with harmony of voice and hearts. For it was a year, or not much more, that Justina, mother to the Emperor Valentinian, a child, persecuted Thy servant Ambrose, in favour of her heresy, to which she was seduced by the Arians. The devout people kept watch in the Church, ready to die with their Bishop Thy servant. There my mother Thy handmaid, bearing a chief part of those anxieties and watchings, lived for prayer. We, yet unwarmed by the heat of Thy Spirit, still were stirred up by the sight of the amazed and disquieted city. Then it was first instituted that after the manner of the Eastern Churches, Hymns and Psalms should be sung, lest the people should wax faint through the tediousness of sorrow: and from that day to this the custom is retained, divers (yea, almost all) Thy congregations, throughout other parts of the world following herein. Then didst Thou by a vision discover to Thy forenamed Bishop where the bodies of Gervasius and Protasius the martyrs lay hid (whom Thou hadst in Thy secret treasury stored uncorrupted so many years), whence Thou mightest seasonably produce them to repress the fury of a woman, but an Empress. For when they were discovered and dug up, and with due honour translated to the Ambrosian Basilica, not only they who were vexed with unclean spirits (the devils confessing themselves) were cured, but a certain man who had for many years been blind, a citizen, and well known to the city, asking and hearing the reason of the people's confused joy, sprang forth desiring his guide to lead him thither. Led thither, he begged to be allowed to touch with his handkerchief the bier of Thy saints, whose death is precious in Thy sight. Which when he had done, and put to his eyes, they were forthwith opened. Thence did the fame spread, thence Thy praises glowed, shone; thence the mind of that enemy, though not turned to the soundness of believing, was yet turned back from her fury of persecuting. Thanks to Thee, O my God. Whence and whither hast Thou thus led my remembrance, that I should confess these things also unto Thee? which great though they be, I had passed by in forgetfulness. And yet then, when the odour of Thy ointments was so fragrant, did we not run after Thee. Therefore did I more weep among the singing of Thy Hymns, formerly sighing after Thee, and at length breathing in Thee, as far as the breath may enter into this our house of grass. Thou that makest men to dwell of one mind in one house, didst join with us Euodius also, a young man of our own city. Who being an officer of Court, was before us converted to Thee and baptised: and quitting his secular warfare, girded himself to Thine. We were together, about to dwell together in our devout purpose. We sought where we might serve Thee most usefully, and were together returning to Africa: whitherward being as far as Ostia, my mother departed this life. Much I omit, as hastening much. Receive my confessions and thanksgivings, O my God, for innumerable things whereof I am silent. But I will not omit whatsoever my soul would bring forth concerning that Thy handmaid, who brought me forth, both in the flesh, that I might be born to this temporal light, and in heart, that I might be born to Light eternal. Not her gifts, but Thine in her, would I speak of; for neither did she make nor educate herself. Thou createdst her; nor did her father and mother know what a one should come from them. And the sceptre of Thy Christ, the discipline of Thine only Son, in a Christian house, a good member of Thy Church, educated her in Thy fear. Yet for her good discipline was she wont to commend not so much her mother's diligence, as that of a certain decrepit maid-servant, who had carried her father when a child, as little ones used to be carried at the backs of elder girls. For which reason, and for her great age, and excellent conversation, was she, in that Christian family, well respected by its heads. Whence also the charge of her master's daughters was entrusted to her, to which she gave diligent heed, restraining them earnestly, when necessary, with a holy severity, and teaching them with a grave discretion. For, except at those hours wherein they were most temporately fed at their parents' table, she would not suffer them, though parched with thirst, to drink even water; preventing an evil custom, and adding this wholesome advice: "Ye drink water now, because you have not wine in your power; but when you come to be married, and be made mistresses of cellars and cupboards, you will scorn water, but the custom of drinking will abide." By this method of instruction, and the authority she had, she refrained the greediness of childhood, and moulded their very thirst to such an excellent moderation that what they should not, that they would not. And yet (as Thy handmaid told me her son) there had crept upon her a love of wine. For when (as the manner was) she, as though a sober maiden, was bidden by her parents to draw wine out of the hogshed, holding the vessel under the opening, before she poured the wine into the flagon, she sipped a little with the tip of her lips; for more her instinctive feelings refused. For this she did, not out of any desire of drink, but out of the exuberance of youth, whereby it boils over in mirthful freaks, which in youthful spirits are wont to be kept under by the gravity of their elders. And thus by adding to that little, daily littles (for whoso despiseth little things shall fall by little and little), she had fallen into such a habit as greedily to drink off her little cup brim-full almost of wine. Where was then that discreet old woman, and that her earnest countermanding? Would aught avail against a secret disease, if Thy healing hand, O Lord, watched not over us? Father, mother, and governors absent, Thou present, who createdst, who callest, who also by those set over us, workest something towards the salvation of our souls, what didst Thou then, O my God? how didst Thou cure her? how heal her? didst Thou not out of another soul bring forth a hard and a sharp taunt, like a lancet out of Thy secret store, and with one touch remove all that foul stuff? For a maid-servant with whom she used to go to the cellar, falling to words (as it happens) with her little mistress, when alone with her, taunted her with this fault, with most bitter insult, calling her wine-bibber. With which taunt she, stung to the quick, saw the foulness of her fault, and instantly condemned and forsook it. As flattering friends pervert, so reproachful enemies mostly correct. Yet not what by them Thou doest, but what themselves purposed, dost Thou repay them. For she in her anger sought to vex her young mistress, not to amend her; and did it in private, either for that the time and place of the quarrel so found them; or lest herself also should have anger, for discovering it thus late. But Thou, Lord, Governor of all in heaven and earth, who turnest to Thy purposes the deepest currents, and the ruled turbulence of the tide of times, didst by the very unhealthiness of one soul heal another; lest any, when he observes this, should ascribe it to his own power, even when another, whom he wished to be reformed, is reformed through words of his. Brought up thus modestly and soberly, and made subject rather by Thee to her parents, than by her parents to Thee, so soon as she was of marriageable age, being bestowed upon a husband, she served him as her lord; and did her diligence to win him unto Thee, preaching Thee unto him by her conversation; by which Thou ornamentedst her, making her reverently amiable, and admirable unto her husband. And she so endured the wronging of her bed as never to have any quarrel with her husband thereon. For she looked for Thy mercy upon him, that believing in Thee, he might be made chaste. But besides this, he was fervid, as in his affections, so in anger: but she had learnt not to resist an angry husband, not in deed only, but not even in word. Only when he was smoothed and tranquil, and in a temper to receive it, she would give an account of her actions, if haply he had overhastily taken offence. In a word, while many matrons, who had milder husbands, yet bore even in their faces marks of shame, would in familiar talk blame their husbands' lives, she would blame their tongues, giving them, as in jest, earnest advice: "That from the time they heard the marriage writings read to them, they should account them as indentures, whereby they were made servants; and so, remembering their condition, ought not to set themselves up against their lords." And when they, knowing what a choleric husband she endured, marvelled that it had never been heard, nor by any token perceived, that Patricius had beaten his wife, or that there had been any domestic difference between them, even for one day, and confidentially asking the reason, she taught them her practice above mentioned. Those wives who observed it found the good, and returned thanks; those who observed it not, found no relief, and suffered. Her mother-in-law also, at first by whisperings of evil servants incensed against her, she so overcame by observance and persevering endurance and meekness, that she of her own accord discovered to her son the meddling tongues whereby the domestic peace betwixt her and her daughter-in-law had been disturbed, asking him to correct them. Then, when in compliance with his mother, and for the well-ordering of the family, he had with stripes corrected those discovered, at her will who had discovered them, she promised the like reward to any who, to please her, should speak ill of her daughter-in-law to her: and none now venturing, they lived together with a remarkable sweetness of mutual kindness. This great gift also thou bestowedst, O my God, my mercy, upon that good handmaid of Thine, in whose womb Thou createdst me, that between any disagreeing and discordant parties where she was able, she showed herself such a peacemaker, that hearing on both sides most bitter things, such as swelling and indigested choler uses to break out into, when the crudities of enmities are breathed out in sour discourses to a present friend against an absent enemy, she never would disclose aught of the one unto the other, but what might tend to their reconcilement. A small good this might appear to me, did I not to my grief know numberless persons, who through some horrible and wide-spreading contagion of sin, not only disclose to persons mutually angered things said in anger, but add withal things never spoken, whereas to humane humanity, it ought to seem a light thing not to torment or increase ill will by ill words, unless one study withal by good words to quench it. Such was she, Thyself, her most inward Instructor, teaching her in the school of

magnified

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

words as it were fixed in our entrails: and the examples of Thy servants, whom for black Thou hadst made bright, and for dead, alive, being piled together in the receptacle of our thoughts, kindled and burned up that our heavy torpor, that we should not sink down to the abyss; and they fired us so vehemently, that all the blasts of subtle tongues from gainsayers might only inflame us the more fiercely, not extinguish us. Nevertheless, because for Thy Name's sake which Thou hast hallowed throughout the earth, this our vow and purpose might also find some to commend it, it seemed like ostentation not to wait for the vacation now so near, but to quit beforehand a public profession, which was before the eyes of all; so that all looking on this act of mine, and observing how near was the time of vintage which I wished to anticipate, would talk much of me, as if I had desired to appear some great one. And what end had it served me, that people should repute and dispute upon my purpose, and that our good should be evil spoken of. Moreover, it had at first troubled me that in this very summer my lungs began to give way, amid too great literary labour, and to breathe deeply with difficulty, and by the pain in my chest to show that they were injured, and to refuse any full or lengthened speaking; this had troubled me, for it almost constrained me of necessity to lay down that burden of teaching, or, if I could be cured and recover, at least to intermit it. But when the full wish for leisure, that I might see how that Thou art the Lord, arose, and was fixed, in me; my God, Thou knowest, I began even to rejoice that I had this secondary, and that no feigned, excuse, which might something moderate the offence taken by those who, for their sons' sake, wished me never to have the freedom of Thy sons. Full then of such joy, I endured till that interval of time were run; it may have been some twenty days, yet they were endured manfully; endured, for the covetousness which aforetime bore a part of this heavy business, had left me, and I remained alone, and had been overwhelmed, had not patience taken its place. Perchance, some of Thy servants, my brethren, may say that I sinned in this, that with a heart fully set on Thy service, I suffered myself to sit even one hour in the chair of lies. Nor would I be contentious. But hast not Thou, O most merciful Lord, pardoned and remitted this sin also, with my other most horrible and deadly sins, in the holy water? Verecundus was worn down with care about this our blessedness, for that being held back by bonds, whereby he was most straitly bound, he saw that he should be severed from us. For himself was not yet a Christian, his wife one of the faithful; and yet hereby, more rigidly than by any other chain, was he let and hindered from the journey which we had now essayed. For he would not, he said, be a Christian on any other terms than on those he could not. However, he offered us courteously to remain at his country-house so long as we should stay there. Thou, O Lord, shalt reward him in the resurrection of the just, seeing Thou hast already given him the lot of the righteous. For although, in our absence, being now at Rome, he was seized with bodily sickness, and therein being made a Christian, and one of the faithful, he departed this life; yet hadst Thou mercy not on him only, but on us also: lest remembering the exceeding kindness of our friend towards us, yet unable to number him among Thy flock, we should be agonised with intolerable sorrow. Thanks unto Thee, our God, we are Thine: Thy suggestions and consolations tell us, Faithful in promises, Thou now requitest Verecundus for his country-house of Cassiacum, where from the fever of the world we reposed in Thee, with the eternal freshness of Thy Paradise: for that Thou hast forgiven him his sins upon earth, in that rich mountain, that mountain which yieldeth milk, Thine own mountain. He then had at that time sorrow, but Nebridius joy. For although he also, not being yet a Christian, had fallen into the pit of that most pernicious error, believing the flesh of Thy Son to be a phantom: yet emerging thence, he believed as we did; not as yet endued with any Sacraments of Thy Church, but a most ardent searcher out of truth. Whom, not long after our conversion and regeneration by Thy Baptism, being also a faithful member of the Church Catholic, and serving Thee in perfect chastity and continence amongst his people in Africa, his whole house having through him first been made Christian, didst Thou release from the flesh; and now he lives in Abraham's bosom. Whatever that be, which is signified by that bosom, there lives my Nebridius, my sweet friend, and Thy child, O Lord, adopted of a freed man: there he liveth. For what other place is there for such a soul? There he liveth, whereof he asked much of me, a poor inexperienced man. Now lays he not his ear to my mouth, but his spiritual mouth unto Thy fountain, and drinketh as much as he can receive, wisdom in proportion to his thirst, endlessly happy. Nor do I think that he is so inebriated therewith, as to forget me; seeing Thou, Lord, Whom he drinketh, art mindful of us. So were we then, comforting Verecundus, who sorrowed, as far as friendship permitted, that our conversion was of such sort; and exhorting him to become faithful, according to his measure, namely, of a married estate; and awaiting Nebridius to follow us, which, being so near, he was all but doing: and so, lo! those days rolled by at length; for long and many they seemed, for the love I bare to the easeful liberty, that I might sing to Thee, from my inmost marrow, My heart hath said unto Thee, I have sought Thy face: Thy face, Lord, will I seek. Now was the day come wherein I was in deed to be freed of my Rhetoric Professorship, whereof in thought I was already freed. And it was done. Thou didst rescue my tongue, whence Thou hadst before rescued my heart. And I blessed Thee, rejoicing; retiring with all mine to the villa. What I there did in writing, which was now enlisted in Thy service, though still, in this breathing-time as it were, panting from the school of pride, my books may witness, as well what I debated with others, as what with myself alone, before Thee: what with Nebridius, who was absent, my Epistles bear witness. And when shall I have time to rehearse all Thy great benefits towards us at that time, especially when hasting on to yet greater mercies? For my remembrance recalls me, and pleasant is it to me, O Lord, to confess to Thee, by what inward goads Thou tamedst me; and how Thou hast evened me, lowering the mountains and hills of my high imaginations, straightening my crookedness, and smoothing my rough ways; and how Thou also subduedst the brother of my heart, Alypius, unto the name of Thy Only Begotten, our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, which he would not at first vouchsafe to have inserted in our writings. For rather would he have them savour of the lofty cedars of the Schools, which the Lord hath now broken down, than of the wholesome herbs of the Church, the antidote against serpents. Oh, in what accents spake I unto Thee, my God, when I read the Psalms of David, those faithful songs, and sounds of devotion, which allow of no swelling spirit, as yet a Catechumen, and a novice in Thy real love, resting in that villa, with Alypius a Catechumen, my mother cleaving to us, in female garb with masculine faith, with the tranquillity of age, motherly love, Christian piety! Oh, what accents did I utter unto Thee in those Psalms, and how was I by them kindled towards Thee, and on fire to rehearse them, if possible, through the whole world, against the pride of mankind! And yet they are sung through the whole world, nor can any hide himself from Thy heat. With what vehement and bitter sorrow was I angered at the Manichees! and again I pitied them, for they knew not those Sacraments, those medicines, and were mad against the antidote which might have recovered them of their madness. How I would they had then been somewhere near me, and without my knowing that they were there, could have beheld my countenance, and heard my words, when I read the fourth Psalm in that time of my rest, and how that Psalm wrought upon me: When I called, the God of my righteousness heard me; in tribulation Thou enlargedst me. Have mercy upon me, O Lord, and hear my prayer. Would that what I uttered on these words, they could hear, without my knowing whether they heard, lest they should think I spake it for their sakes! Because in truth neither should I speak the same things, nor in the same way, if I perceived that they heard and saw me; nor if I spake them would they so receive them, as when I spake by and for myself before Thee, out of the natural feelings of my soul. I trembled for fear, and again kindled with hope, and with rejoicing in Thy mercy, O Father; and all issued forth both by mine eyes and voice, when Thy good Spirit turning unto us, said, O ye sons of men, how long slow of heart? why do ye love vanity, and seek after leasing? For I had loved vanity, and sought after leasing. And Thou, O Lord, hadst already magnified Thy Holy One, raising Him from the dead, and setting Him at Thy right hand, whence from on high He should send His promise, the Comforter, the Spirit of truth. And He had already sent Him, but I knew it not; He had sent Him, because He was now magnified, rising again from the dead, and ascending into heaven. For till then, the Spirit was not yet given, because Jesus was not yet glorified. And the prophet cries out, How long, slow of heart? why do ye love vanity, and seek after leasing? Know this, that the Lord hath magnified His Holy One. He cries out, How long? He cries out, Know this: and I so long, not knowing, loved vanity, and sought after leasing: and therefore I heard and trembled, because it was spoken unto such as I remembered myself to have been. For in those phantoms which I had held for truths, was there vanity and leasing; and I spake aloud many things earnestly and forcibly, in the bitterness of my remembrance. Which would they had heard, who yet love vanity and seek after leasing! They would perchance have been troubled, and have vomited it up; and Thou wouldest hear them when they cried unto Thee; for by a true death in the flesh did He die for us, who now intercedeth unto Thee for us. I further read, Be angry, and sin not. And how was I moved, O my God, who had now learned to be angry at myself for things past, that I might not sin in time to come! Yea, to be justly angry; for that it was not another nature of a people of darkness which sinned for me, as they say who are not angry at themselves, and treasure up wrath against the day of wrath, and of the revelation of Thy just judgment. Nor were my good things now without, nor sought with the eyes of flesh in that earthly sun; for they that would have joy from without soon become vain, and waste themselves on the things seen and temporal, and in their famished thoughts do lick their very shadows. Oh that they were wearied out with their famine, and said, Who will show us good things? And we would say, and they hear, The light of Thy countenance is sealed upon us. For we are not that light which enlighteneth every man, but we are enlightened by Thee; that having been sometimes darkness, we may be light in Thee. Oh that they could see the eternal Internal, which having tasted, I was grieved that I could not show It them, so long as they brought me their heart in their eyes roving abroad from Thee, while they said, Who will show us good things? For there, where I was angry within myself in my chamber, where I was inwardly pricked, where I had sacrificed, slaying my old man and commencing the purpose of a new life, putting my trust in Thee,--there hadst Thou begun to grow sweet unto me, and hadst put gladness in my heart. And I cried out, as I read this outwardly, finding it inwardly. Nor would I be multiplied with worldly goods; wasting away time, and wasted by time; whereas I had in Thy eternal Simple Essence other corn, and wine, and oil. And with a loud cry of my heart I cried out in the next verse, O in peace, O for The Self-same! O what said he, I will lay me down and sleep, for who shall hinder us, when cometh to pass that saying which is written, Death is swallowed up in victory? And Thou surpassingly art the Self-same, Who art not changed; and in Thee is rest which forgetteth all toil, for there is none other with Thee, nor are we to seek those many other things, which are not what Thou art: but Thou, Lord, alone hast made me dwell in hope. I read, and kindled; nor found I what to do to those deaf and dead, of whom myself had been, a pestilent person, a bitter and a blind bawler against those writings, which are honied with the honey of heaven, and lightsome with Thine own light: and I was consumed with zeal at the enemies of this Scripture. When shall I recall all which passed in those holy-days? Yet neither have I forgotten, nor will I pass over the severity of Thy scourge, and the wonderful swiftness of Thy mercy. Thou didst then torment me with pain in my teeth; which when it had come to such height that I could not speak, it came into my heart to desire all my friends present to pray for me to Thee, the God of all manner of health. And this I wrote on wax, and gave it them to read. Presently so soon as with humble devotion we had bowed our knees, that pain went away. But what pain? or how went it away? I was affrighted, O my Lord, my God; for from infancy I had never experienced the like. And the power of Thy Nod was deeply conveyed to me, and rejoicing in faith, I praised Thy Name. And that faith suffered me not to be at ease about my past sins, which were not yet forgiven me by Thy baptism. The vintage-vacation ended, I gave notice to the Milanese to provide their scholars with another master to sell words to them; for that I had both made choice to serve Thee, and through my difficulty of breathing and pain in my chest was not equal to the Professorship. And by letters I signified to Thy Prelate, the holy man Ambrose, my former errors and present desires, begging his advice what of Thy Scriptures I had best read, to become readier and fitter for receiving so great grace. He recommended Isaiah the Prophet: I believe, because he above the rest is a more clear foreshower of the Gospel and of the calling of the Gentiles. But I, not understanding the first lesson in him, and imagining the whole to be like it, laid it by, to be resumed when better practised in our Lord's own words. Thence, when the time was come wherein I was to give in my name, we left the country and returned to Milan. It pleased Alypius also to be with me born again in Thee, being already clothed with the humility befitting Thy Sacraments; and a most valiant tamer of the body, so as, with unwonted venture, to wear the frozen ground of Italy with his bare feet. We joined with us the boy Adeodatus, born after the flesh, of my sin. Excellently hadst Thou made him. He was not quite fifteen, and in wit surpassed many grave and learned men. I confess unto Thee Thy gifts, O Lord my God, Creator of all, and abundantly able to reform our deformities: for I had no part in that boy, but the sin. For that we brought him up in Thy discipline, it was Thou, none else, had inspired us with it. I confess unto Thee Thy gifts. There is a book of ours entitled The Master; it is a dialogue between him and me. Thou knowest that all there ascribed to the person conversing with me were his ideas, in his sixteenth year. Much besides, and yet more admirable, I found in him. That talent struck awe into me. And who but Thou could be the workmaster of such wonders? Soon didst Thou take his life from the earth: and I now remember him without anxiety, fearing nothing for his childhood or youth, or his whole self. Him we joined with us, our contemporary in grace, to be brought up in Thy discipline: and we were baptised, and anxiety for our past life vanished from us. Nor was I sated in those days with the wondrous sweetness of considering the depth of Thy counsels concerning the salvation of mankind. How did I weep, in Thy Hymns and Canticles, touched to the quick by the voices of Thy sweet-attuned Church! The voices flowed into mine ears, and the Truth distilled into my heart, whence the affections of my devotion overflowed, and tears ran down, and happy was I therein. Not long had the Church of Milan begun to use this kind of consolation and exhortation, the brethren zealously joining with harmony of voice and hearts. For it was a year, or not much more, that Justina, mother to the Emperor Valentinian, a child, persecuted Thy servant Ambrose, in favour of her heresy, to which she was seduced by the Arians. The devout people kept watch in the Church, ready to die with their Bishop Thy servant. There my mother Thy handmaid, bearing a chief part of those anxieties and watchings, lived for prayer. We, yet unwarmed by the heat of Thy Spirit, still were stirred up by the sight of the amazed and disquieted city. Then it was first instituted that after the manner of the Eastern Churches, Hymns and Psalms should be sung, lest the people should wax faint through the tediousness of sorrow: and from that day to this the custom is retained, divers (yea, almost all) Thy congregations, throughout other parts of the world following herein. Then didst Thou by a vision discover to Thy forenamed Bishop where the bodies of Gervasius and Protasius the martyrs lay hid (whom Thou hadst in Thy secret treasury stored uncorrupted so many years), whence Thou mightest seasonably produce them to repress the fury of a woman, but an Empress. For when they were discovered and dug up, and with due honour translated to the Ambrosian Basilica, not only they who were vexed with unclean spirits (the devils confessing themselves) were cured, but a certain man who had for many years been blind, a citizen, and well known to the city, asking and hearing the reason of the people's confused joy, sprang forth desiring his guide to lead him thither. Led thither, he begged to be allowed to touch with his handkerchief the bier of Thy saints, whose death is precious in Thy sight. Which when he had done, and put to his eyes, they were forthwith opened. Thence did the fame spread, thence Thy praises glowed, shone; thence the mind of that enemy, though not turned to the soundness of believing, was yet turned back from her fury of persecuting. Thanks to Thee, O my God. Whence and whither hast Thou thus led my remembrance, that I should confess these things also unto Thee? which great though they be, I had passed by in forgetfulness. And yet then, when the odour of Thy ointments was so fragrant, did we not run after Thee. Therefore did I more weep among the singing of Thy Hymns, formerly sighing after Thee, and at length breathing in Thee, as far as the breath may enter into this our house of grass. Thou that makest men to dwell of one mind in one house, didst join with us Euodius also, a young man of our own city. Who being an officer of Court, was before us converted to Thee and baptised: and quitting his secular warfare, girded himself to Thine. We were together, about to dwell together in our devout purpose. We sought where we might serve Thee most usefully, and were together returning to Africa: whitherward being as far as Ostia, my mother departed this life. Much I omit, as hastening much. Receive my confessions and thanksgivings, O my God, for innumerable things whereof I am silent. But I will not omit whatsoever my soul would bring forth concerning that Thy handmaid, who brought me forth, both in the flesh, that I might be born to this temporal light, and in heart, that I might be born to Light eternal. Not her gifts, but Thine in her, would I speak of; for neither did she make nor educate herself. Thou createdst her; nor did her father and mother know what a one should come from them. And the sceptre of Thy Christ, the discipline of Thine only Son, in a Christian house, a good member of Thy Church, educated her in Thy fear. Yet for her good discipline was she wont to commend not so much her mother's diligence, as that of a certain decrepit maid-servant, who had carried her father when a child, as little ones used to be carried at the backs of elder girls. For which reason, and for her great age, and excellent conversation, was she, in that Christian family, well respected by its heads. Whence also the charge of her master's daughters was entrusted to her, to which she gave diligent heed, restraining them earnestly, when necessary, with a holy severity, and teaching them with a grave discretion. For, except at those hours wherein they were most temporately fed at their parents' table, she would not suffer them, though parched with thirst, to drink even water; preventing an evil custom, and adding this wholesome advice: "Ye drink water now, because you have not wine in your power; but when you come to be married, and be made mistresses of cellars and cupboards, you will scorn water, but the custom of drinking will abide." By this method of instruction, and the authority she had, she refrained the greediness of childhood, and moulded their very thirst to such an excellent moderation that what they should not, that they would not. And yet (as Thy handmaid told me her son) there had crept upon her a love of wine. For when (as the manner was) she, as though a sober maiden, was bidden by her parents to draw wine out of the hogshed, holding the vessel under the opening, before she poured the wine into the flagon, she sipped a little with the tip of her lips; for more her instinctive feelings refused. For this she did, not out of any desire of drink, but out of the exuberance of youth, whereby it boils over in mirthful freaks, which in youthful spirits are wont to be kept under by the gravity of their elders. And thus by adding to that little, daily littles (for whoso despiseth little things shall fall by little and little), she had fallen into such a habit as greedily to drink off her little cup brim-full almost of wine. Where was then that discreet old woman, and that her earnest countermanding? Would aught avail against a secret disease, if Thy healing hand, O Lord, watched not over us? Father, mother, and governors absent, Thou present, who createdst, who callest, who also by those set over us, workest something towards the salvation of our souls, what didst Thou then, O my God? how didst Thou cure her? how heal her? didst Thou not out of another soul bring forth a hard and a sharp taunt, like a lancet out of Thy secret store, and with one touch remove all that foul stuff? For a maid-servant with whom she used to go to the cellar, falling to words (as it happens) with her little mistress, when alone with her, taunted her with this fault, with most bitter insult, calling her wine-bibber. With which taunt she, stung to the quick, saw the foulness of her fault, and instantly condemned and forsook it. As flattering friends pervert, so reproachful enemies mostly correct. Yet not what by them Thou doest, but what themselves purposed, dost Thou repay them. For she in her anger sought to vex her young mistress, not to amend her; and did it in private, either for that the time and place of the quarrel so found them; or lest herself also should have anger, for discovering it thus late. But Thou, Lord, Governor of all in heaven and earth, who turnest to Thy purposes the deepest currents, and the ruled turbulence of the tide of times, didst by the very unhealthiness of one soul heal another; lest any, when he observes this, should ascribe it to his own power, even when another, whom he wished to be reformed, is reformed through words of his. Brought up thus modestly and soberly, and made subject rather by Thee to her parents, than by her parents to Thee, so soon as she was of marriageable age, being bestowed upon a husband, she served him as her lord; and did her diligence to win him unto Thee, preaching Thee unto him by her conversation; by which Thou ornamentedst her, making her reverently amiable, and admirable unto her husband. And she so endured the wronging of her bed as never to have any quarrel with her husband thereon. For she looked for Thy mercy upon him, that believing in Thee, he might be made chaste. But besides this, he was fervid, as in his affections, so in anger: but she had learnt not to resist an angry husband, not in deed only, but not even in word. Only when he was smoothed and tranquil, and in a temper to receive it, she would give an account of her actions, if haply he had overhastily taken offence. In a word, while many matrons, who had milder husbands, yet bore even in their faces marks of shame, would in familiar talk blame their husbands' lives, she would blame their tongues, giving them, as in jest, earnest advice: "That from the time they heard the marriage writings read to them, they should account them as indentures, whereby they were made servants; and so, remembering their condition, ought not to set themselves up against their lords." And when they, knowing what a choleric husband she endured, marvelled that it had never been heard, nor by any token perceived, that Patricius had beaten his wife, or that there had been any domestic difference between them, even for one day, and confidentially asking the reason, she taught them her practice above mentioned. Those wives who observed it found the good, and returned thanks; those who observed it not, found no relief, and suffered. Her mother-in-law also, at first by whisperings of evil servants incensed against her, she so overcame by observance and persevering endurance and meekness, that she of her own accord discovered to her son the meddling tongues whereby the domestic peace betwixt her and her daughter-in-law had been disturbed, asking him to correct them. Then, when in compliance with his mother, and for the well-ordering of the family, he had with stripes corrected those discovered, at her will who had discovered them, she promised the like reward to any who, to please her, should speak ill of her daughter-in-law to her: and none now venturing, they lived together with a remarkable sweetness of mutual kindness. This great gift also thou bestowedst, O my God, my mercy, upon that good handmaid of Thine, in whose womb Thou createdst me, that between any disagreeing and discordant parties where she was able, she showed herself such a peacemaker, that hearing on both sides most bitter things, such as swelling and indigested choler uses to break out into, when the crudities of enmities are breathed out in sour discourses to a present friend against an absent enemy, she never would disclose aught of the one unto the other, but what might tend to their reconcilement. A small good this might appear to me, did I not to my grief know numberless persons, who through some horrible and wide-spreading contagion of sin, not only disclose to persons mutually angered things said in anger, but add withal things never spoken, whereas to humane humanity, it ought to seem a light thing not to torment or increase ill will by ill words, unless one study withal by good words to quench it. Such was she, Thyself, her most inward Instructor, teaching her in the school of

villa

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

words as it were fixed in our entrails: and the examples of Thy servants, whom for black Thou hadst made bright, and for dead, alive, being piled together in the receptacle of our thoughts, kindled and burned up that our heavy torpor, that we should not sink down to the abyss; and they fired us so vehemently, that all the blasts of subtle tongues from gainsayers might only inflame us the more fiercely, not extinguish us. Nevertheless, because for Thy Name's sake which Thou hast hallowed throughout the earth, this our vow and purpose might also find some to commend it, it seemed like ostentation not to wait for the vacation now so near, but to quit beforehand a public profession, which was before the eyes of all; so that all looking on this act of mine, and observing how near was the time of vintage which I wished to anticipate, would talk much of me, as if I had desired to appear some great one. And what end had it served me, that people should repute and dispute upon my purpose, and that our good should be evil spoken of. Moreover, it had at first troubled me that in this very summer my lungs began to give way, amid too great literary labour, and to breathe deeply with difficulty, and by the pain in my chest to show that they were injured, and to refuse any full or lengthened speaking; this had troubled me, for it almost constrained me of necessity to lay down that burden of teaching, or, if I could be cured and recover, at least to intermit it. But when the full wish for leisure, that I might see how that Thou art the Lord, arose, and was fixed, in me; my God, Thou knowest, I began even to rejoice that I had this secondary, and that no feigned, excuse, which might something moderate the offence taken by those who, for their sons' sake, wished me never to have the freedom of Thy sons. Full then of such joy, I endured till that interval of time were run; it may have been some twenty days, yet they were endured manfully; endured, for the covetousness which aforetime bore a part of this heavy business, had left me, and I remained alone, and had been overwhelmed, had not patience taken its place. Perchance, some of Thy servants, my brethren, may say that I sinned in this, that with a heart fully set on Thy service, I suffered myself to sit even one hour in the chair of lies. Nor would I be contentious. But hast not Thou, O most merciful Lord, pardoned and remitted this sin also, with my other most horrible and deadly sins, in the holy water? Verecundus was worn down with care about this our blessedness, for that being held back by bonds, whereby he was most straitly bound, he saw that he should be severed from us. For himself was not yet a Christian, his wife one of the faithful; and yet hereby, more rigidly than by any other chain, was he let and hindered from the journey which we had now essayed. For he would not, he said, be a Christian on any other terms than on those he could not. However, he offered us courteously to remain at his country-house so long as we should stay there. Thou, O Lord, shalt reward him in the resurrection of the just, seeing Thou hast already given him the lot of the righteous. For although, in our absence, being now at Rome, he was seized with bodily sickness, and therein being made a Christian, and one of the faithful, he departed this life; yet hadst Thou mercy not on him only, but on us also: lest remembering the exceeding kindness of our friend towards us, yet unable to number him among Thy flock, we should be agonised with intolerable sorrow. Thanks unto Thee, our God, we are Thine: Thy suggestions and consolations tell us, Faithful in promises, Thou now requitest Verecundus for his country-house of Cassiacum, where from the fever of the world we reposed in Thee, with the eternal freshness of Thy Paradise: for that Thou hast forgiven him his sins upon earth, in that rich mountain, that mountain which yieldeth milk, Thine own mountain. He then had at that time sorrow, but Nebridius joy. For although he also, not being yet a Christian, had fallen into the pit of that most pernicious error, believing the flesh of Thy Son to be a phantom: yet emerging thence, he believed as we did; not as yet endued with any Sacraments of Thy Church, but a most ardent searcher out of truth. Whom, not long after our conversion and regeneration by Thy Baptism, being also a faithful member of the Church Catholic, and serving Thee in perfect chastity and continence amongst his people in Africa, his whole house having through him first been made Christian, didst Thou release from the flesh; and now he lives in Abraham's bosom. Whatever that be, which is signified by that bosom, there lives my Nebridius, my sweet friend, and Thy child, O Lord, adopted of a freed man: there he liveth. For what other place is there for such a soul? There he liveth, whereof he asked much of me, a poor inexperienced man. Now lays he not his ear to my mouth, but his spiritual mouth unto Thy fountain, and drinketh as much as he can receive, wisdom in proportion to his thirst, endlessly happy. Nor do I think that he is so inebriated therewith, as to forget me; seeing Thou, Lord, Whom he drinketh, art mindful of us. So were we then, comforting Verecundus, who sorrowed, as far as friendship permitted, that our conversion was of such sort; and exhorting him to become faithful, according to his measure, namely, of a married estate; and awaiting Nebridius to follow us, which, being so near, he was all but doing: and so, lo! those days rolled by at length; for long and many they seemed, for the love I bare to the easeful liberty, that I might sing to Thee, from my inmost marrow, My heart hath said unto Thee, I have sought Thy face: Thy face, Lord, will I seek. Now was the day come wherein I was in deed to be freed of my Rhetoric Professorship, whereof in thought I was already freed. And it was done. Thou didst rescue my tongue, whence Thou hadst before rescued my heart. And I blessed Thee, rejoicing; retiring with all mine to the villa. What I there did in writing, which was now enlisted in Thy service, though still, in this breathing-time as it were, panting from the school of pride, my books may witness, as well what I debated with others, as what with myself alone, before Thee: what with Nebridius, who was absent, my Epistles bear witness. And when shall I have time to rehearse all Thy great benefits towards us at that time, especially when hasting on to yet greater mercies? For my remembrance recalls me, and pleasant is it to me, O Lord, to confess to Thee, by what inward goads Thou tamedst me; and how Thou hast evened me, lowering the mountains and hills of my high imaginations, straightening my crookedness, and smoothing my rough ways; and how Thou also subduedst the brother of my heart, Alypius, unto the name of Thy Only Begotten, our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, which he would not at first vouchsafe to have inserted in our writings. For rather would he have them savour of the lofty cedars of the Schools, which the Lord hath now broken down, than of the wholesome herbs of the Church, the antidote against serpents. Oh, in what accents spake I unto Thee, my God, when I read the Psalms of David, those faithful songs, and sounds of devotion, which allow of no swelling spirit, as yet a Catechumen, and a novice in Thy real love, resting in that villa, with Alypius a Catechumen, my mother cleaving to us, in female garb with masculine faith, with the tranquillity of age, motherly love, Christian piety! Oh, what accents did I utter unto Thee in those Psalms, and how was I by them kindled towards Thee, and on fire to rehearse them, if possible, through the whole world, against the pride of mankind! And yet they are sung through the whole world, nor can any hide himself from Thy heat. With what vehement and bitter sorrow was I angered at the Manichees! and again I pitied them, for they knew not those Sacraments, those medicines, and were mad against the antidote which might have recovered them of their madness. How I would they had then been somewhere near me, and without my knowing that they were there, could have beheld my countenance, and heard my words, when I read the fourth Psalm in that time of my rest, and how that Psalm wrought upon me: When I called, the God of my righteousness heard me; in tribulation Thou enlargedst me. Have mercy upon me, O Lord, and hear my prayer. Would that what I uttered on these words, they could hear, without my knowing whether they heard, lest they should think I spake it for their sakes! Because in truth neither should I speak the same things, nor in the same way, if I perceived that they heard and saw me; nor if I spake them would they so receive them, as when I spake by and for myself before Thee, out of the natural feelings of my soul. I trembled for fear, and again kindled with hope, and with rejoicing in Thy mercy, O Father; and all issued forth both by mine eyes and voice, when Thy good Spirit turning unto us, said, O ye sons of men, how long slow of heart? why do ye love vanity, and seek after leasing? For I had loved vanity, and sought after leasing. And Thou, O Lord, hadst already magnified Thy Holy One, raising Him from the dead, and setting Him at Thy right hand, whence from on high He should send His promise, the Comforter, the Spirit of truth. And He had already sent Him, but I knew it not; He had sent Him, because He was now magnified, rising again from the dead, and ascending into heaven. For till then, the Spirit was not yet given, because Jesus was not yet glorified. And the prophet cries out, How long, slow of heart? why do ye love vanity, and seek after leasing? Know this, that the Lord hath magnified His Holy One. He cries out, How long? He cries out, Know this: and I so long, not knowing, loved vanity, and sought after leasing: and therefore I heard and trembled, because it was spoken unto such as I remembered myself to have been. For in those phantoms which I had held for truths, was there vanity and leasing; and I spake aloud many things earnestly and forcibly, in the bitterness of my remembrance. Which would they had heard, who yet love vanity and seek after leasing! They would perchance have been troubled, and have vomited it up; and Thou wouldest hear them when they cried unto Thee; for by a true death in the flesh did He die for us, who now intercedeth unto Thee for us. I further read, Be angry, and sin not. And how was I moved, O my God, who had now learned to be angry at myself for things past, that I might not sin in time to come! Yea, to be justly angry; for that it was not another nature of a people of darkness which sinned for me, as they say who are not angry at themselves, and treasure up wrath against the day of wrath, and of the revelation of Thy just judgment. Nor were my good things now without, nor sought with the eyes of flesh in that earthly sun; for they that would have joy from without soon become vain, and waste themselves on the things seen and temporal, and in their famished thoughts do lick their very shadows. Oh that they were wearied out with their famine, and said, Who will show us good things? And we would say, and they hear, The light of Thy countenance is sealed upon us. For we are not that light which enlighteneth every man, but we are enlightened by Thee; that having been sometimes darkness, we may be light in Thee. Oh that they could see the eternal Internal, which having tasted, I was grieved that I could not show It them, so long as they brought me their heart in their eyes roving abroad from Thee, while they said, Who will show us good things? For there, where I was angry within myself in my chamber, where I was inwardly pricked, where I had sacrificed, slaying my old man and commencing the purpose of a new life, putting my trust in Thee,--there hadst Thou begun to grow sweet unto me, and hadst put gladness in my heart. And I cried out, as I read this outwardly, finding it inwardly. Nor would I be multiplied with worldly goods; wasting away time, and wasted by time; whereas I had in Thy eternal Simple Essence other corn, and wine, and oil. And with a loud cry of my heart I cried out in the next verse, O in peace, O for The Self-same! O what said he, I will lay me down and sleep, for who shall hinder us, when cometh to pass that saying which is written, Death is swallowed up in victory? And Thou surpassingly art the Self-same, Who art not changed; and in Thee is rest which forgetteth all toil, for there is none other with Thee, nor are we to seek those many other things, which are not what Thou art: but Thou, Lord, alone hast made me dwell in hope. I read, and kindled; nor found I what to do to those deaf and dead, of whom myself had been, a pestilent person, a bitter and a blind bawler against those writings, which are honied with the honey of heaven, and lightsome with Thine own light: and I was consumed with zeal at the enemies of this Scripture. When shall I recall all which passed in those holy-days? Yet neither have I forgotten, nor will I pass over the severity of Thy scourge, and the wonderful swiftness of Thy mercy. Thou didst then torment me with pain in my teeth; which when it had come to such height that I could not speak, it came into my heart to desire all my friends present to pray for me to Thee, the God of all manner of health. And this I wrote on wax, and gave it them to read. Presently so soon as with humble devotion we had bowed our knees, that pain went away. But what pain? or how went it away? I was affrighted, O my Lord, my God; for from infancy I had never experienced the like. And the power of Thy Nod was deeply conveyed to me, and rejoicing in faith, I praised Thy Name. And that faith suffered me not to be at ease about my past sins, which were not yet forgiven me by Thy baptism. The vintage-vacation ended, I gave notice to the Milanese to provide their scholars with another master to sell words to them; for that I had both made choice to serve Thee, and through my difficulty of breathing and pain in my chest was not equal to the Professorship. And by letters I signified to Thy Prelate, the holy man Ambrose, my former errors and present desires, begging his advice what of Thy Scriptures I had best read, to become readier and fitter for receiving so great grace. He recommended Isaiah the Prophet: I believe, because he above the rest is a more clear foreshower of the Gospel and of the calling of the Gentiles. But I, not understanding the first lesson in him, and imagining the whole to be like it, laid it by, to be resumed when better practised in our Lord's own words. Thence, when the time was come wherein I was to give in my name, we left the country and returned to Milan. It pleased Alypius also to be with me born again in Thee, being already clothed with the humility befitting Thy Sacraments; and a most valiant tamer of the body, so as, with unwonted venture, to wear the frozen ground of Italy with his bare feet. We joined with us the boy Adeodatus, born after the flesh, of my sin. Excellently hadst Thou made him. He was not quite fifteen, and in wit surpassed many grave and learned men. I confess unto Thee Thy gifts, O Lord my God, Creator of all, and abundantly able to reform our deformities: for I had no part in that boy, but the sin. For that we brought him up in Thy discipline, it was Thou, none else, had inspired us with it. I confess unto Thee Thy gifts. There is a book of ours entitled The Master; it is a dialogue between him and me. Thou knowest that all there ascribed to the person conversing with me were his ideas, in his sixteenth year. Much besides, and yet more admirable, I found in him. That talent struck awe into me. And who but Thou could be the workmaster of such wonders? Soon didst Thou take his life from the earth: and I now remember him without anxiety, fearing nothing for his childhood or youth, or his whole self. Him we joined with us, our contemporary in grace, to be brought up in Thy discipline: and we were baptised, and anxiety for our past life vanished from us. Nor was I sated in those days with the wondrous sweetness of considering the depth of Thy counsels concerning the salvation of mankind. How did I weep, in Thy Hymns and Canticles, touched to the quick by the voices of Thy sweet-attuned Church! The voices flowed into mine ears, and the Truth distilled into my heart, whence the affections of my devotion overflowed, and tears ran down, and happy was I therein. Not long had the Church of Milan begun to use this kind of consolation and exhortation, the brethren zealously joining with harmony of voice and hearts. For it was a year, or not much more, that Justina, mother to the Emperor Valentinian, a child, persecuted Thy servant Ambrose, in favour of her heresy, to which she was seduced by the Arians. The devout people kept watch in the Church, ready to die with their Bishop Thy servant. There my mother Thy handmaid, bearing a chief part of those anxieties and watchings, lived for prayer. We, yet unwarmed by the heat of Thy Spirit, still were stirred up by the sight of the amazed and disquieted city. Then it was first instituted that after the manner of the Eastern Churches, Hymns and Psalms should be sung, lest the people should wax faint through the tediousness of sorrow: and from that day to this the custom is retained, divers (yea, almost all) Thy congregations, throughout other parts of the world following herein. Then didst Thou by a vision discover to Thy forenamed Bishop where the bodies of Gervasius and Protasius the martyrs lay hid (whom Thou hadst in Thy secret treasury stored uncorrupted so many years), whence Thou mightest seasonably produce them to repress the fury of a woman, but an Empress. For when they were discovered and dug up, and with due honour translated to the Ambrosian Basilica, not only they who were vexed with unclean spirits (the devils confessing themselves) were cured, but a certain man who had for many years been blind, a citizen, and well known to the city, asking and hearing the reason of the people's confused joy, sprang forth desiring his guide to lead him thither. Led thither, he begged to be allowed to touch with his handkerchief the bier of Thy saints, whose death is precious in Thy sight. Which when he had done, and put to his eyes, they were forthwith opened. Thence did the fame spread, thence Thy praises glowed, shone; thence the mind of that enemy, though not turned to the soundness of believing, was yet turned back from her fury of persecuting. Thanks to Thee, O my God. Whence and whither hast Thou thus led my remembrance, that I should confess these things also unto Thee? which great though they be, I had passed by in forgetfulness. And yet then, when the odour of Thy ointments was so fragrant, did we not run after Thee. Therefore did I more weep among the singing of Thy Hymns, formerly sighing after Thee, and at length breathing in Thee, as far as the breath may enter into this our house of grass. Thou that makest men to dwell of one mind in one house, didst join with us Euodius also, a young man of our own city. Who being an officer of Court, was before us converted to Thee and baptised: and quitting his secular warfare, girded himself to Thine. We were together, about to dwell together in our devout purpose. We sought where we might serve Thee most usefully, and were together returning to Africa: whitherward being as far as Ostia, my mother departed this life. Much I omit, as hastening much. Receive my confessions and thanksgivings, O my God, for innumerable things whereof I am silent. But I will not omit whatsoever my soul would bring forth concerning that Thy handmaid, who brought me forth, both in the flesh, that I might be born to this temporal light, and in heart, that I might be born to Light eternal. Not her gifts, but Thine in her, would I speak of; for neither did she make nor educate herself. Thou createdst her; nor did her father and mother know what a one should come from them. And the sceptre of Thy Christ, the discipline of Thine only Son, in a Christian house, a good member of Thy Church, educated her in Thy fear. Yet for her good discipline was she wont to commend not so much her mother's diligence, as that of a certain decrepit maid-servant, who had carried her father when a child, as little ones used to be carried at the backs of elder girls. For which reason, and for her great age, and excellent conversation, was she, in that Christian family, well respected by its heads. Whence also the charge of her master's daughters was entrusted to her, to which she gave diligent heed, restraining them earnestly, when necessary, with a holy severity, and teaching them with a grave discretion. For, except at those hours wherein they were most temporately fed at their parents' table, she would not suffer them, though parched with thirst, to drink even water; preventing an evil custom, and adding this wholesome advice: "Ye drink water now, because you have not wine in your power; but when you come to be married, and be made mistresses of cellars and cupboards, you will scorn water, but the custom of drinking will abide." By this method of instruction, and the authority she had, she refrained the greediness of childhood, and moulded their very thirst to such an excellent moderation that what they should not, that they would not. And yet (as Thy handmaid told me her son) there had crept upon her a love of wine. For when (as the manner was) she, as though a sober maiden, was bidden by her parents to draw wine out of the hogshed, holding the vessel under the opening, before she poured the wine into the flagon, she sipped a little with the tip of her lips; for more her instinctive feelings refused. For this she did, not out of any desire of drink, but out of the exuberance of youth, whereby it boils over in mirthful freaks, which in youthful spirits are wont to be kept under by the gravity of their elders. And thus by adding to that little, daily littles (for whoso despiseth little things shall fall by little and little), she had fallen into such a habit as greedily to drink off her little cup brim-full almost of wine. Where was then that discreet old woman, and that her earnest countermanding? Would aught avail against a secret disease, if Thy healing hand, O Lord, watched not over us? Father, mother, and governors absent, Thou present, who createdst, who callest, who also by those set over us, workest something towards the salvation of our souls, what didst Thou then, O my God? how didst Thou cure her? how heal her? didst Thou not out of another soul bring forth a hard and a sharp taunt, like a lancet out of Thy secret store, and with one touch remove all that foul stuff? For a maid-servant with whom she used to go to the cellar, falling to words (as it happens) with her little mistress, when alone with her, taunted her with this fault, with most bitter insult, calling her wine-bibber. With which taunt she, stung to the quick, saw the foulness of her fault, and instantly condemned and forsook it. As flattering friends pervert, so reproachful enemies mostly correct. Yet not what by them Thou doest, but what themselves purposed, dost Thou repay them. For she in her anger sought to vex her young mistress, not to amend her; and did it in private, either for that the time and place of the quarrel so found them; or lest herself also should have anger, for discovering it thus late. But Thou, Lord, Governor of all in heaven and earth, who turnest to Thy purposes the deepest currents, and the ruled turbulence of the tide of times, didst by the very unhealthiness of one soul heal another; lest any, when he observes this, should ascribe it to his own power, even when another, whom he wished to be reformed, is reformed through words of his. Brought up thus modestly and soberly, and made subject rather by Thee to her parents, than by her parents to Thee, so soon as she was of marriageable age, being bestowed upon a husband, she served him as her lord; and did her diligence to win him unto Thee, preaching Thee unto him by her conversation; by which Thou ornamentedst her, making her reverently amiable, and admirable unto her husband. And she so endured the wronging of her bed as never to have any quarrel with her husband thereon. For she looked for Thy mercy upon him, that believing in Thee, he might be made chaste. But besides this, he was fervid, as in his affections, so in anger: but she had learnt not to resist an angry husband, not in deed only, but not even in word. Only when he was smoothed and tranquil, and in a temper to receive it, she would give an account of her actions, if haply he had overhastily taken offence. In a word, while many matrons, who had milder husbands, yet bore even in their faces marks of shame, would in familiar talk blame their husbands' lives, she would blame their tongues, giving them, as in jest, earnest advice: "That from the time they heard the marriage writings read to them, they should account them as indentures, whereby they were made servants; and so, remembering their condition, ought not to set themselves up against their lords." And when they, knowing what a choleric husband she endured, marvelled that it had never been heard, nor by any token perceived, that Patricius had beaten his wife, or that there had been any domestic difference between them, even for one day, and confidentially asking the reason, she taught them her practice above mentioned. Those wives who observed it found the good, and returned thanks; those who observed it not, found no relief, and suffered. Her mother-in-law also, at first by whisperings of evil servants incensed against her, she so overcame by observance and persevering endurance and meekness, that she of her own accord discovered to her son the meddling tongues whereby the domestic peace betwixt her and her daughter-in-law had been disturbed, asking him to correct them. Then, when in compliance with his mother, and for the well-ordering of the family, he had with stripes corrected those discovered, at her will who had discovered them, she promised the like reward to any who, to please her, should speak ill of her daughter-in-law to her: and none now venturing, they lived together with a remarkable sweetness of mutual kindness. This great gift also thou bestowedst, O my God, my mercy, upon that good handmaid of Thine, in whose womb Thou createdst me, that between any disagreeing and discordant parties where she was able, she showed herself such a peacemaker, that hearing on both sides most bitter things, such as swelling and indigested choler uses to break out into, when the crudities of enmities are breathed out in sour discourses to a present friend against an absent enemy, she never would disclose aught of the one unto the other, but what might tend to their reconcilement. A small good this might appear to me, did I not to my grief know numberless persons, who through some horrible and wide-spreading contagion of sin, not only disclose to persons mutually angered things said in anger, but add withal things never spoken, whereas to humane humanity, it ought to seem a light thing not to torment or increase ill will by ill words, unless one study withal by good words to quench it. Such was she, Thyself, her most inward Instructor, teaching her in the school of

hath

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

words as it were fixed in our entrails: and the examples of Thy servants, whom for black Thou hadst made bright, and for dead, alive, being piled together in the receptacle of our thoughts, kindled and burned up that our heavy torpor, that we should not sink down to the abyss; and they fired us so vehemently, that all the blasts of subtle tongues from gainsayers might only inflame us the more fiercely, not extinguish us. Nevertheless, because for Thy Name's sake which Thou hast hallowed throughout the earth, this our vow and purpose might also find some to commend it, it seemed like ostentation not to wait for the vacation now so near, but to quit beforehand a public profession, which was before the eyes of all; so that all looking on this act of mine, and observing how near was the time of vintage which I wished to anticipate, would talk much of me, as if I had desired to appear some great one. And what end had it served me, that people should repute and dispute upon my purpose, and that our good should be evil spoken of. Moreover, it had at first troubled me that in this very summer my lungs began to give way, amid too great literary labour, and to breathe deeply with difficulty, and by the pain in my chest to show that they were injured, and to refuse any full or lengthened speaking; this had troubled me, for it almost constrained me of necessity to lay down that burden of teaching, or, if I could be cured and recover, at least to intermit it. But when the full wish for leisure, that I might see how that Thou art the Lord, arose, and was fixed, in me; my God, Thou knowest, I began even to rejoice that I had this secondary, and that no feigned, excuse, which might something moderate the offence taken by those who, for their sons' sake, wished me never to have the freedom of Thy sons. Full then of such joy, I endured till that interval of time were run; it may have been some twenty days, yet they were endured manfully; endured, for the covetousness which aforetime bore a part of this heavy business, had left me, and I remained alone, and had been overwhelmed, had not patience taken its place. Perchance, some of Thy servants, my brethren, may say that I sinned in this, that with a heart fully set on Thy service, I suffered myself to sit even one hour in the chair of lies. Nor would I be contentious. But hast not Thou, O most merciful Lord, pardoned and remitted this sin also, with my other most horrible and deadly sins, in the holy water? Verecundus was worn down with care about this our blessedness, for that being held back by bonds, whereby he was most straitly bound, he saw that he should be severed from us. For himself was not yet a Christian, his wife one of the faithful; and yet hereby, more rigidly than by any other chain, was he let and hindered from the journey which we had now essayed. For he would not, he said, be a Christian on any other terms than on those he could not. However, he offered us courteously to remain at his country-house so long as we should stay there. Thou, O Lord, shalt reward him in the resurrection of the just, seeing Thou hast already given him the lot of the righteous. For although, in our absence, being now at Rome, he was seized with bodily sickness, and therein being made a Christian, and one of the faithful, he departed this life; yet hadst Thou mercy not on him only, but on us also: lest remembering the exceeding kindness of our friend towards us, yet unable to number him among Thy flock, we should be agonised with intolerable sorrow. Thanks unto Thee, our God, we are Thine: Thy suggestions and consolations tell us, Faithful in promises, Thou now requitest Verecundus for his country-house of Cassiacum, where from the fever of the world we reposed in Thee, with the eternal freshness of Thy Paradise: for that Thou hast forgiven him his sins upon earth, in that rich mountain, that mountain which yieldeth milk, Thine own mountain. He then had at that time sorrow, but Nebridius joy. For although he also, not being yet a Christian, had fallen into the pit of that most pernicious error, believing the flesh of Thy Son to be a phantom: yet emerging thence, he believed as we did; not as yet endued with any Sacraments of Thy Church, but a most ardent searcher out of truth. Whom, not long after our conversion and regeneration by Thy Baptism, being also a faithful member of the Church Catholic, and serving Thee in perfect chastity and continence amongst his people in Africa, his whole house having through him first been made Christian, didst Thou release from the flesh; and now he lives in Abraham's bosom. Whatever that be, which is signified by that bosom, there lives my Nebridius, my sweet friend, and Thy child, O Lord, adopted of a freed man: there he liveth. For what other place is there for such a soul? There he liveth, whereof he asked much of me, a poor inexperienced man. Now lays he not his ear to my mouth, but his spiritual mouth unto Thy fountain, and drinketh as much as he can receive, wisdom in proportion to his thirst, endlessly happy. Nor do I think that he is so inebriated therewith, as to forget me; seeing Thou, Lord, Whom he drinketh, art mindful of us. So were we then, comforting Verecundus, who sorrowed, as far as friendship permitted, that our conversion was of such sort; and exhorting him to become faithful, according to his measure, namely, of a married estate; and awaiting Nebridius to follow us, which, being so near, he was all but doing: and so, lo! those days rolled by at length; for long and many they seemed, for the love I bare to the easeful liberty, that I might sing to Thee, from my inmost marrow, My heart hath said unto Thee, I have sought Thy face: Thy face, Lord, will I seek. Now was the day come wherein I was in deed to be freed of my Rhetoric Professorship, whereof in thought I was already freed. And it was done. Thou didst rescue my tongue, whence Thou hadst before rescued my heart. And I blessed Thee, rejoicing; retiring with all mine to the villa. What I there did in writing, which was now enlisted in Thy service, though still, in this breathing-time as it were, panting from the school of pride, my books may witness, as well what I debated with others, as what with myself alone, before Thee: what with Nebridius, who was absent, my Epistles bear witness. And when shall I have time to rehearse all Thy great benefits towards us at that time, especially when hasting on to yet greater mercies? For my remembrance recalls me, and pleasant is it to me, O Lord, to confess to Thee, by what inward goads Thou tamedst me; and how Thou hast evened me, lowering the mountains and hills of my high imaginations, straightening my crookedness, and smoothing my rough ways; and how Thou also subduedst the brother of my heart, Alypius, unto the name of Thy Only Begotten, our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, which he would not at first vouchsafe to have inserted in our writings. For rather would he have them savour of the lofty cedars of the Schools, which the Lord hath now broken down, than of the wholesome herbs of the Church, the antidote against serpents. Oh, in what accents spake I unto Thee, my God, when I read the Psalms of David, those faithful songs, and sounds of devotion, which allow of no swelling spirit, as yet a Catechumen, and a novice in Thy real love, resting in that villa, with Alypius a Catechumen, my mother cleaving to us, in female garb with masculine faith, with the tranquillity of age, motherly love, Christian piety! Oh, what accents did I utter unto Thee in those Psalms, and how was I by them kindled towards Thee, and on fire to rehearse them, if possible, through the whole world, against the pride of mankind! And yet they are sung through the whole world, nor can any hide himself from Thy heat. With what vehement and bitter sorrow was I angered at the Manichees! and again I pitied them, for they knew not those Sacraments, those medicines, and were mad against the antidote which might have recovered them of their madness. How I would they had then been somewhere near me, and without my knowing that they were there, could have beheld my countenance, and heard my words, when I read the fourth Psalm in that time of my rest, and how that Psalm wrought upon me: When I called, the God of my righteousness heard me; in tribulation Thou enlargedst me. Have mercy upon me, O Lord, and hear my prayer. Would that what I uttered on these words, they could hear, without my knowing whether they heard, lest they should think I spake it for their sakes! Because in truth neither should I speak the same things, nor in the same way, if I perceived that they heard and saw me; nor if I spake them would they so receive them, as when I spake by and for myself before Thee, out of the natural feelings of my soul. I trembled for fear, and again kindled with hope, and with rejoicing in Thy mercy, O Father; and all issued forth both by mine eyes and voice, when Thy good Spirit turning unto us, said, O ye sons of men, how long slow of heart? why do ye love vanity, and seek after leasing? For I had loved vanity, and sought after leasing. And Thou, O Lord, hadst already magnified Thy Holy One, raising Him from the dead, and setting Him at Thy right hand, whence from on high He should send His promise, the Comforter, the Spirit of truth. And He had already sent Him, but I knew it not; He had sent Him, because He was now magnified, rising again from the dead, and ascending into heaven. For till then, the Spirit was not yet given, because Jesus was not yet glorified. And the prophet cries out, How long, slow of heart? why do ye love vanity, and seek after leasing? Know this, that the Lord hath magnified His Holy One. He cries out, How long? He cries out, Know this: and I so long, not knowing, loved vanity, and sought after leasing: and therefore I heard and trembled, because it was spoken unto such as I remembered myself to have been. For in those phantoms which I had held for truths, was there vanity and leasing; and I spake aloud many things earnestly and forcibly, in the bitterness of my remembrance. Which would they had heard, who yet love vanity and seek after leasing! They would perchance have been troubled, and have vomited it up; and Thou wouldest hear them when they cried unto Thee; for by a true death in the flesh did He die for us, who now intercedeth unto Thee for us. I further read, Be angry, and sin not. And how was I moved, O my God, who had now learned to be angry at myself for things past, that I might not sin in time to come! Yea, to be justly angry; for that it was not another nature of a people of darkness which sinned for me, as they say who are not angry at themselves, and treasure up wrath against the day of wrath, and of the revelation of Thy just judgment. Nor were my good things now without, nor sought with the eyes of flesh in that earthly sun; for they that would have joy from without soon become vain, and waste themselves on the things seen and temporal, and in their famished thoughts do lick their very shadows. Oh that they were wearied out with their famine, and said, Who will show us good things? And we would say, and they hear, The light of Thy countenance is sealed upon us. For we are not that light which enlighteneth every man, but we are enlightened by Thee; that having been sometimes darkness, we may be light in Thee. Oh that they could see the eternal Internal, which having tasted, I was grieved that I could not show It them, so long as they brought me their heart in their eyes roving abroad from Thee, while they said, Who will show us good things? For there, where I was angry within myself in my chamber, where I was inwardly pricked, where I had sacrificed, slaying my old man and commencing the purpose of a new life, putting my trust in Thee,--there hadst Thou begun to grow sweet unto me, and hadst put gladness in my heart. And I cried out, as I read this outwardly, finding it inwardly. Nor would I be multiplied with worldly goods; wasting away time, and wasted by time; whereas I had in Thy eternal Simple Essence other corn, and wine, and oil. And with a loud cry of my heart I cried out in the next verse, O in peace, O for The Self-same! O what said he, I will lay me down and sleep, for who shall hinder us, when cometh to pass that saying which is written, Death is swallowed up in victory? And Thou surpassingly art the Self-same, Who art not changed; and in Thee is rest which forgetteth all toil, for there is none other with Thee, nor are we to seek those many other things, which are not what Thou art: but Thou, Lord, alone hast made me dwell in hope. I read, and kindled; nor found I what to do to those deaf and dead, of whom myself had been, a pestilent person, a bitter and a blind bawler against those writings, which are honied with the honey of heaven, and lightsome with Thine own light: and I was consumed with zeal at the enemies of this Scripture. When shall I recall all which passed in those holy-days? Yet neither have I forgotten, nor will I pass over the severity of Thy scourge, and the wonderful swiftness of Thy mercy. Thou didst then torment me with pain in my teeth; which when it had come to such height that I could not speak, it came into my heart to desire all my friends present to pray for me to Thee, the God of all manner of health. And this I wrote on wax, and gave it them to read. Presently so soon as with humble devotion we had bowed our knees, that pain went away. But what pain? or how went it away? I was affrighted, O my Lord, my God; for from infancy I had never experienced the like. And the power of Thy Nod was deeply conveyed to me, and rejoicing in faith, I praised Thy Name. And that faith suffered me not to be at ease about my past sins, which were not yet forgiven me by Thy baptism. The vintage-vacation ended, I gave notice to the Milanese to provide their scholars with another master to sell words to them; for that I had both made choice to serve Thee, and through my difficulty of breathing and pain in my chest was not equal to the Professorship. And by letters I signified to Thy Prelate, the holy man Ambrose, my former errors and present desires, begging his advice what of Thy Scriptures I had best read, to become readier and fitter for receiving so great grace. He recommended Isaiah the Prophet: I believe, because he above the rest is a more clear foreshower of the Gospel and of the calling of the Gentiles. But I, not understanding the first lesson in him, and imagining the whole to be like it, laid it by, to be resumed when better practised in our Lord's own words. Thence, when the time was come wherein I was to give in my name, we left the country and returned to Milan. It pleased Alypius also to be with me born again in Thee, being already clothed with the humility befitting Thy Sacraments; and a most valiant tamer of the body, so as, with unwonted venture, to wear the frozen ground of Italy with his bare feet. We joined with us the boy Adeodatus, born after the flesh, of my sin. Excellently hadst Thou made him. He was not quite fifteen, and in wit surpassed many grave and learned men. I confess unto Thee Thy gifts, O Lord my God, Creator of all, and abundantly able to reform our deformities: for I had no part in that boy, but the sin. For that we brought him up in Thy discipline, it was Thou, none else, had inspired us with it. I confess unto Thee Thy gifts. There is a book of ours entitled The Master; it is a dialogue between him and me. Thou knowest that all there ascribed to the person conversing with me were his ideas, in his sixteenth year. Much besides, and yet more admirable, I found in him. That talent struck awe into me. And who but Thou could be the workmaster of such wonders? Soon didst Thou take his life from the earth: and I now remember him without anxiety, fearing nothing for his childhood or youth, or his whole self. Him we joined with us, our contemporary in grace, to be brought up in Thy discipline: and we were baptised, and anxiety for our past life vanished from us. Nor was I sated in those days with the wondrous sweetness of considering the depth of Thy counsels concerning the salvation of mankind. How did I weep, in Thy Hymns and Canticles, touched to the quick by the voices of Thy sweet-attuned Church! The voices flowed into mine ears, and the Truth distilled into my heart, whence the affections of my devotion overflowed, and tears ran down, and happy was I therein. Not long had the Church of Milan begun to use this kind of consolation and exhortation, the brethren zealously joining with harmony of voice and hearts. For it was a year, or not much more, that Justina, mother to the Emperor Valentinian, a child, persecuted Thy servant Ambrose, in favour of her heresy, to which she was seduced by the Arians. The devout people kept watch in the Church, ready to die with their Bishop Thy servant. There my mother Thy handmaid, bearing a chief part of those anxieties and watchings, lived for prayer. We, yet unwarmed by the heat of Thy Spirit, still were stirred up by the sight of the amazed and disquieted city. Then it was first instituted that after the manner of the Eastern Churches, Hymns and Psalms should be sung, lest the people should wax faint through the tediousness of sorrow: and from that day to this the custom is retained, divers (yea, almost all) Thy congregations, throughout other parts of the world following herein. Then didst Thou by a vision discover to Thy forenamed Bishop where the bodies of Gervasius and Protasius the martyrs lay hid (whom Thou hadst in Thy secret treasury stored uncorrupted so many years), whence Thou mightest seasonably produce them to repress the fury of a woman, but an Empress. For when they were discovered and dug up, and with due honour translated to the Ambrosian Basilica, not only they who were vexed with unclean spirits (the devils confessing themselves) were cured, but a certain man who had for many years been blind, a citizen, and well known to the city, asking and hearing the reason of the people's confused joy, sprang forth desiring his guide to lead him thither. Led thither, he begged to be allowed to touch with his handkerchief the bier of Thy saints, whose death is precious in Thy sight. Which when he had done, and put to his eyes, they were forthwith opened. Thence did the fame spread, thence Thy praises glowed, shone; thence the mind of that enemy, though not turned to the soundness of believing, was yet turned back from her fury of persecuting. Thanks to Thee, O my God. Whence and whither hast Thou thus led my remembrance, that I should confess these things also unto Thee? which great though they be, I had passed by in forgetfulness. And yet then, when the odour of Thy ointments was so fragrant, did we not run after Thee. Therefore did I more weep among the singing of Thy Hymns, formerly sighing after Thee, and at length breathing in Thee, as far as the breath may enter into this our house of grass. Thou that makest men to dwell of one mind in one house, didst join with us Euodius also, a young man of our own city. Who being an officer of Court, was before us converted to Thee and baptised: and quitting his secular warfare, girded himself to Thine. We were together, about to dwell together in our devout purpose. We sought where we might serve Thee most usefully, and were together returning to Africa: whitherward being as far as Ostia, my mother departed this life. Much I omit, as hastening much. Receive my confessions and thanksgivings, O my God, for innumerable things whereof I am silent. But I will not omit whatsoever my soul would bring forth concerning that Thy handmaid, who brought me forth, both in the flesh, that I might be born to this temporal light, and in heart, that I might be born to Light eternal. Not her gifts, but Thine in her, would I speak of; for neither did she make nor educate herself. Thou createdst her; nor did her father and mother know what a one should come from them. And the sceptre of Thy Christ, the discipline of Thine only Son, in a Christian house, a good member of Thy Church, educated her in Thy fear. Yet for her good discipline was she wont to commend not so much her mother's diligence, as that of a certain decrepit maid-servant, who had carried her father when a child, as little ones used to be carried at the backs of elder girls. For which reason, and for her great age, and excellent conversation, was she, in that Christian family, well respected by its heads. Whence also the charge of her master's daughters was entrusted to her, to which she gave diligent heed, restraining them earnestly, when necessary, with a holy severity, and teaching them with a grave discretion. For, except at those hours wherein they were most temporately fed at their parents' table, she would not suffer them, though parched with thirst, to drink even water; preventing an evil custom, and adding this wholesome advice: "Ye drink water now, because you have not wine in your power; but when you come to be married, and be made mistresses of cellars and cupboards, you will scorn water, but the custom of drinking will abide." By this method of instruction, and the authority she had, she refrained the greediness of childhood, and moulded their very thirst to such an excellent moderation that what they should not, that they would not. And yet (as Thy handmaid told me her son) there had crept upon her a love of wine. For when (as the manner was) she, as though a sober maiden, was bidden by her parents to draw wine out of the hogshed, holding the vessel under the opening, before she poured the wine into the flagon, she sipped a little with the tip of her lips; for more her instinctive feelings refused. For this she did, not out of any desire of drink, but out of the exuberance of youth, whereby it boils over in mirthful freaks, which in youthful spirits are wont to be kept under by the gravity of their elders. And thus by adding to that little, daily littles (for whoso despiseth little things shall fall by little and little), she had fallen into such a habit as greedily to drink off her little cup brim-full almost of wine. Where was then that discreet old woman, and that her earnest countermanding? Would aught avail against a secret disease, if Thy healing hand, O Lord, watched not over us? Father, mother, and governors absent, Thou present, who createdst, who callest, who also by those set over us, workest something towards the salvation of our souls, what didst Thou then, O my God? how didst Thou cure her? how heal her? didst Thou not out of another soul bring forth a hard and a sharp taunt, like a lancet out of Thy secret store, and with one touch remove all that foul stuff? For a maid-servant with whom she used to go to the cellar, falling to words (as it happens) with her little mistress, when alone with her, taunted her with this fault, with most bitter insult, calling her wine-bibber. With which taunt she, stung to the quick, saw the foulness of her fault, and instantly condemned and forsook it. As flattering friends pervert, so reproachful enemies mostly correct. Yet not what by them Thou doest, but what themselves purposed, dost Thou repay them. For she in her anger sought to vex her young mistress, not to amend her; and did it in private, either for that the time and place of the quarrel so found them; or lest herself also should have anger, for discovering it thus late. But Thou, Lord, Governor of all in heaven and earth, who turnest to Thy purposes the deepest currents, and the ruled turbulence of the tide of times, didst by the very unhealthiness of one soul heal another; lest any, when he observes this, should ascribe it to his own power, even when another, whom he wished to be reformed, is reformed through words of his. Brought up thus modestly and soberly, and made subject rather by Thee to her parents, than by her parents to Thee, so soon as she was of marriageable age, being bestowed upon a husband, she served him as her lord; and did her diligence to win him unto Thee, preaching Thee unto him by her conversation; by which Thou ornamentedst her, making her reverently amiable, and admirable unto her husband. And she so endured the wronging of her bed as never to have any quarrel with her husband thereon. For she looked for Thy mercy upon him, that believing in Thee, he might be made chaste. But besides this, he was fervid, as in his affections, so in anger: but she had learnt not to resist an angry husband, not in deed only, but not even in word. Only when he was smoothed and tranquil, and in a temper to receive it, she would give an account of her actions, if haply he had overhastily taken offence. In a word, while many matrons, who had milder husbands, yet bore even in their faces marks of shame, would in familiar talk blame their husbands' lives, she would blame their tongues, giving them, as in jest, earnest advice: "That from the time they heard the marriage writings read to them, they should account them as indentures, whereby they were made servants; and so, remembering their condition, ought not to set themselves up against their lords." And when they, knowing what a choleric husband she endured, marvelled that it had never been heard, nor by any token perceived, that Patricius had beaten his wife, or that there had been any domestic difference between them, even for one day, and confidentially asking the reason, she taught them her practice above mentioned. Those wives who observed it found the good, and returned thanks; those who observed it not, found no relief, and suffered. Her mother-in-law also, at first by whisperings of evil servants incensed against her, she so overcame by observance and persevering endurance and meekness, that she of her own accord discovered to her son the meddling tongues whereby the domestic peace betwixt her and her daughter-in-law had been disturbed, asking him to correct them. Then, when in compliance with his mother, and for the well-ordering of the family, he had with stripes corrected those discovered, at her will who had discovered them, she promised the like reward to any who, to please her, should speak ill of her daughter-in-law to her: and none now venturing, they lived together with a remarkable sweetness of mutual kindness. This great gift also thou bestowedst, O my God, my mercy, upon that good handmaid of Thine, in whose womb Thou createdst me, that between any disagreeing and discordant parties where she was able, she showed herself such a peacemaker, that hearing on both sides most bitter things, such as swelling and indigested choler uses to break out into, when the crudities of enmities are breathed out in sour discourses to a present friend against an absent enemy, she never would disclose aught of the one unto the other, but what might tend to their reconcilement. A small good this might appear to me, did I not to my grief know numberless persons, who through some horrible and wide-spreading contagion of sin, not only disclose to persons mutually angered things said in anger, but add withal things never spoken, whereas to humane humanity, it ought to seem a light thing not to torment or increase ill will by ill words, unless one study withal by good words to quench it. Such was she, Thyself, her most inward Instructor, teaching her in the school of

till

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

words as it were fixed in our entrails: and the examples of Thy servants, whom for black Thou hadst made bright, and for dead, alive, being piled together in the receptacle of our thoughts, kindled and burned up that our heavy torpor, that we should not sink down to the abyss; and they fired us so vehemently, that all the blasts of subtle tongues from gainsayers might only inflame us the more fiercely, not extinguish us. Nevertheless, because for Thy Name's sake which Thou hast hallowed throughout the earth, this our vow and purpose might also find some to commend it, it seemed like ostentation not to wait for the vacation now so near, but to quit beforehand a public profession, which was before the eyes of all; so that all looking on this act of mine, and observing how near was the time of vintage which I wished to anticipate, would talk much of me, as if I had desired to appear some great one. And what end had it served me, that people should repute and dispute upon my purpose, and that our good should be evil spoken of. Moreover, it had at first troubled me that in this very summer my lungs began to give way, amid too great literary labour, and to breathe deeply with difficulty, and by the pain in my chest to show that they were injured, and to refuse any full or lengthened speaking; this had troubled me, for it almost constrained me of necessity to lay down that burden of teaching, or, if I could be cured and recover, at least to intermit it. But when the full wish for leisure, that I might see how that Thou art the Lord, arose, and was fixed, in me; my God, Thou knowest, I began even to rejoice that I had this secondary, and that no feigned, excuse, which might something moderate the offence taken by those who, for their sons' sake, wished me never to have the freedom of Thy sons. Full then of such joy, I endured till that interval of time were run; it may have been some twenty days, yet they were endured manfully; endured, for the covetousness which aforetime bore a part of this heavy business, had left me, and I remained alone, and had been overwhelmed, had not patience taken its place. Perchance, some of Thy servants, my brethren, may say that I sinned in this, that with a heart fully set on Thy service, I suffered myself to sit even one hour in the chair of lies. Nor would I be contentious. But hast not Thou, O most merciful Lord, pardoned and remitted this sin also, with my other most horrible and deadly sins, in the holy water? Verecundus was worn down with care about this our blessedness, for that being held back by bonds, whereby he was most straitly bound, he saw that he should be severed from us. For himself was not yet a Christian, his wife one of the faithful; and yet hereby, more rigidly than by any other chain, was he let and hindered from the journey which we had now essayed. For he would not, he said, be a Christian on any other terms than on those he could not. However, he offered us courteously to remain at his country-house so long as we should stay there. Thou, O Lord, shalt reward him in the resurrection of the just, seeing Thou hast already given him the lot of the righteous. For although, in our absence, being now at Rome, he was seized with bodily sickness, and therein being made a Christian, and one of the faithful, he departed this life; yet hadst Thou mercy not on him only, but on us also: lest remembering the exceeding kindness of our friend towards us, yet unable to number him among Thy flock, we should be agonised with intolerable sorrow. Thanks unto Thee, our God, we are Thine: Thy suggestions and consolations tell us, Faithful in promises, Thou now requitest Verecundus for his country-house of Cassiacum, where from the fever of the world we reposed in Thee, with the eternal freshness of Thy Paradise: for that Thou hast forgiven him his sins upon earth, in that rich mountain, that mountain which yieldeth milk, Thine own mountain. He then had at that time sorrow, but Nebridius joy. For although he also, not being yet a Christian, had fallen into the pit of that most pernicious error, believing the flesh of Thy Son to be a phantom: yet emerging thence, he believed as we did; not as yet endued with any Sacraments of Thy Church, but a most ardent searcher out of truth. Whom, not long after our conversion and regeneration by Thy Baptism, being also a faithful member of the Church Catholic, and serving Thee in perfect chastity and continence amongst his people in Africa, his whole house having through him first been made Christian, didst Thou release from the flesh; and now he lives in Abraham's bosom. Whatever that be, which is signified by that bosom, there lives my Nebridius, my sweet friend, and Thy child, O Lord, adopted of a freed man: there he liveth. For what other place is there for such a soul? There he liveth, whereof he asked much of me, a poor inexperienced man. Now lays he not his ear to my mouth, but his spiritual mouth unto Thy fountain, and drinketh as much as he can receive, wisdom in proportion to his thirst, endlessly happy. Nor do I think that he is so inebriated therewith, as to forget me; seeing Thou, Lord, Whom he drinketh, art mindful of us. So were we then, comforting Verecundus, who sorrowed, as far as friendship permitted, that our conversion was of such sort; and exhorting him to become faithful, according to his measure, namely, of a married estate; and awaiting Nebridius to follow us, which, being so near, he was all but doing: and so, lo! those days rolled by at length; for long and many they seemed, for the love I bare to the easeful liberty, that I might sing to Thee, from my inmost marrow, My heart hath said unto Thee, I have sought Thy face: Thy face, Lord, will I seek. Now was the day come wherein I was in deed to be freed of my Rhetoric Professorship, whereof in thought I was already freed. And it was done. Thou didst rescue my tongue, whence Thou hadst before rescued my heart. And I blessed Thee, rejoicing; retiring with all mine to the villa. What I there did in writing, which was now enlisted in Thy service, though still, in this breathing-time as it were, panting from the school of pride, my books may witness, as well what I debated with others, as what with myself alone, before Thee: what with Nebridius, who was absent, my Epistles bear witness. And when shall I have time to rehearse all Thy great benefits towards us at that time, especially when hasting on to yet greater mercies? For my remembrance recalls me, and pleasant is it to me, O Lord, to confess to Thee, by what inward goads Thou tamedst me; and how Thou hast evened me, lowering the mountains and hills of my high imaginations, straightening my crookedness, and smoothing my rough ways; and how Thou also subduedst the brother of my heart, Alypius, unto the name of Thy Only Begotten, our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, which he would not at first vouchsafe to have inserted in our writings. For rather would he have them savour of the lofty cedars of the Schools, which the Lord hath now broken down, than of the wholesome herbs of the Church, the antidote against serpents. Oh, in what accents spake I unto Thee, my God, when I read the Psalms of David, those faithful songs, and sounds of devotion, which allow of no swelling spirit, as yet a Catechumen, and a novice in Thy real love, resting in that villa, with Alypius a Catechumen, my mother cleaving to us, in female garb with masculine faith, with the tranquillity of age, motherly love, Christian piety! Oh, what accents did I utter unto Thee in those Psalms, and how was I by them kindled towards Thee, and on fire to rehearse them, if possible, through the whole world, against the pride of mankind! And yet they are sung through the whole world, nor can any hide himself from Thy heat. With what vehement and bitter sorrow was I angered at the Manichees! and again I pitied them, for they knew not those Sacraments, those medicines, and were mad against the antidote which might have recovered them of their madness. How I would they had then been somewhere near me, and without my knowing that they were there, could have beheld my countenance, and heard my words, when I read the fourth Psalm in that time of my rest, and how that Psalm wrought upon me: When I called, the God of my righteousness heard me; in tribulation Thou enlargedst me. Have mercy upon me, O Lord, and hear my prayer. Would that what I uttered on these words, they could hear, without my knowing whether they heard, lest they should think I spake it for their sakes! Because in truth neither should I speak the same things, nor in the same way, if I perceived that they heard and saw me; nor if I spake them would they so receive them, as when I spake by and for myself before Thee, out of the natural feelings of my soul. I trembled for fear, and again kindled with hope, and with rejoicing in Thy mercy, O Father; and all issued forth both by mine eyes and voice, when Thy good Spirit turning unto us, said, O ye sons of men, how long slow of heart? why do ye love vanity, and seek after leasing? For I had loved vanity, and sought after leasing. And Thou, O Lord, hadst already magnified Thy Holy One, raising Him from the dead, and setting Him at Thy right hand, whence from on high He should send His promise, the Comforter, the Spirit of truth. And He had already sent Him, but I knew it not; He had sent Him, because He was now magnified, rising again from the dead, and ascending into heaven. For till then, the Spirit was not yet given, because Jesus was not yet glorified. And the prophet cries out, How long, slow of heart? why do ye love vanity, and seek after leasing? Know this, that the Lord hath magnified His Holy One. He cries out, How long? He cries out, Know this: and I so long, not knowing, loved vanity, and sought after leasing: and therefore I heard and trembled, because it was spoken unto such as I remembered myself to have been. For in those phantoms which I had held for truths, was there vanity and leasing; and I spake aloud many things earnestly and forcibly, in the bitterness of my remembrance. Which would they had heard, who yet love vanity and seek after leasing! They would perchance have been troubled, and have vomited it up; and Thou wouldest hear them when they cried unto Thee; for by a true death in the flesh did He die for us, who now intercedeth unto Thee for us. I further read, Be angry, and sin not. And how was I moved, O my God, who had now learned to be angry at myself for things past, that I might not sin in time to come! Yea, to be justly angry; for that it was not another nature of a people of darkness which sinned for me, as they say who are not angry at themselves, and treasure up wrath against the day of wrath, and of the revelation of Thy just judgment. Nor were my good things now without, nor sought with the eyes of flesh in that earthly sun; for they that would have joy from without soon become vain, and waste themselves on the things seen and temporal, and in their famished thoughts do lick their very shadows. Oh that they were wearied out with their famine, and said, Who will show us good things? And we would say, and they hear, The light of Thy countenance is sealed upon us. For we are not that light which enlighteneth every man, but we are enlightened by Thee; that having been sometimes darkness, we may be light in Thee. Oh that they could see the eternal Internal, which having tasted, I was grieved that I could not show It them, so long as they brought me their heart in their eyes roving abroad from Thee, while they said, Who will show us good things? For there, where I was angry within myself in my chamber, where I was inwardly pricked, where I had sacrificed, slaying my old man and commencing the purpose of a new life, putting my trust in Thee,--there hadst Thou begun to grow sweet unto me, and hadst put gladness in my heart. And I cried out, as I read this outwardly, finding it inwardly. Nor would I be multiplied with worldly goods; wasting away time, and wasted by time; whereas I had in Thy eternal Simple Essence other corn, and wine, and oil. And with a loud cry of my heart I cried out in the next verse, O in peace, O for The Self-same! O what said he, I will lay me down and sleep, for who shall hinder us, when cometh to pass that saying which is written, Death is swallowed up in victory? And Thou surpassingly art the Self-same, Who art not changed; and in Thee is rest which forgetteth all toil, for there is none other with Thee, nor are we to seek those many other things, which are not what Thou art: but Thou, Lord, alone hast made me dwell in hope. I read, and kindled; nor found I what to do to those deaf and dead, of whom myself had been, a pestilent person, a bitter and a blind bawler against those writings, which are honied with the honey of heaven, and lightsome with Thine own light: and I was consumed with zeal at the enemies of this Scripture. When shall I recall all which passed in those holy-days? Yet neither have I forgotten, nor will I pass over the severity of Thy scourge, and the wonderful swiftness of Thy mercy. Thou didst then torment me with pain in my teeth; which when it had come to such height that I could not speak, it came into my heart to desire all my friends present to pray for me to Thee, the God of all manner of health. And this I wrote on wax, and gave it them to read. Presently so soon as with humble devotion we had bowed our knees, that pain went away. But what pain? or how went it away? I was affrighted, O my Lord, my God; for from infancy I had never experienced the like. And the power of Thy Nod was deeply conveyed to me, and rejoicing in faith, I praised Thy Name. And that faith suffered me not to be at ease about my past sins, which were not yet forgiven me by Thy baptism. The vintage-vacation ended, I gave notice to the Milanese to provide their scholars with another master to sell words to them; for that I had both made choice to serve Thee, and through my difficulty of breathing and pain in my chest was not equal to the Professorship. And by letters I signified to Thy Prelate, the holy man Ambrose, my former errors and present desires, begging his advice what of Thy Scriptures I had best read, to become readier and fitter for receiving so great grace. He recommended Isaiah the Prophet: I believe, because he above the rest is a more clear foreshower of the Gospel and of the calling of the Gentiles. But I, not understanding the first lesson in him, and imagining the whole to be like it, laid it by, to be resumed when better practised in our Lord's own words. Thence, when the time was come wherein I was to give in my name, we left the country and returned to Milan. It pleased Alypius also to be with me born again in Thee, being already clothed with the humility befitting Thy Sacraments; and a most valiant tamer of the body, so as, with unwonted venture, to wear the frozen ground of Italy with his bare feet. We joined with us the boy Adeodatus, born after the flesh, of my sin. Excellently hadst Thou made him. He was not quite fifteen, and in wit surpassed many grave and learned men. I confess unto Thee Thy gifts, O Lord my God, Creator of all, and abundantly able to reform our deformities: for I had no part in that boy, but the sin. For that we brought him up in Thy discipline, it was Thou, none else, had inspired us with it. I confess unto Thee Thy gifts. There is a book of ours entitled The Master; it is a dialogue between him and me. Thou knowest that all there ascribed to the person conversing with me were his ideas, in his sixteenth year. Much besides, and yet more admirable, I found in him. That talent struck awe into me. And who but Thou could be the workmaster of such wonders? Soon didst Thou take his life from the earth: and I now remember him without anxiety, fearing nothing for his childhood or youth, or his whole self. Him we joined with us, our contemporary in grace, to be brought up in Thy discipline: and we were baptised, and anxiety for our past life vanished from us. Nor was I sated in those days with the wondrous sweetness of considering the depth of Thy counsels concerning the salvation of mankind. How did I weep, in Thy Hymns and Canticles, touched to the quick by the voices of Thy sweet-attuned Church! The voices flowed into mine ears, and the Truth distilled into my heart, whence the affections of my devotion overflowed, and tears ran down, and happy was I therein. Not long had the Church of Milan begun to use this kind of consolation and exhortation, the brethren zealously joining with harmony of voice and hearts. For it was a year, or not much more, that Justina, mother to the Emperor Valentinian, a child, persecuted Thy servant Ambrose, in favour of her heresy, to which she was seduced by the Arians. The devout people kept watch in the Church, ready to die with their Bishop Thy servant. There my mother Thy handmaid, bearing a chief part of those anxieties and watchings, lived for prayer. We, yet unwarmed by the heat of Thy Spirit, still were stirred up by the sight of the amazed and disquieted city. Then it was first instituted that after the manner of the Eastern Churches, Hymns and Psalms should be sung, lest the people should wax faint through the tediousness of sorrow: and from that day to this the custom is retained, divers (yea, almost all) Thy congregations, throughout other parts of the world following herein. Then didst Thou by a vision discover to Thy forenamed Bishop where the bodies of Gervasius and Protasius the martyrs lay hid (whom Thou hadst in Thy secret treasury stored uncorrupted so many years), whence Thou mightest seasonably produce them to repress the fury of a woman, but an Empress. For when they were discovered and dug up, and with due honour translated to the Ambrosian Basilica, not only they who were vexed with unclean spirits (the devils confessing themselves) were cured, but a certain man who had for many years been blind, a citizen, and well known to the city, asking and hearing the reason of the people's confused joy, sprang forth desiring his guide to lead him thither. Led thither, he begged to be allowed to touch with his handkerchief the bier of Thy saints, whose death is precious in Thy sight. Which when he had done, and put to his eyes, they were forthwith opened. Thence did the fame spread, thence Thy praises glowed, shone; thence the mind of that enemy, though not turned to the soundness of believing, was yet turned back from her fury of persecuting. Thanks to Thee, O my God. Whence and whither hast Thou thus led my remembrance, that I should confess these things also unto Thee? which great though they be, I had passed by in forgetfulness. And yet then, when the odour of Thy ointments was so fragrant, did we not run after Thee. Therefore did I more weep among the singing of Thy Hymns, formerly sighing after Thee, and at length breathing in Thee, as far as the breath may enter into this our house of grass. Thou that makest men to dwell of one mind in one house, didst join with us Euodius also, a young man of our own city. Who being an officer of Court, was before us converted to Thee and baptised: and quitting his secular warfare, girded himself to Thine. We were together, about to dwell together in our devout purpose. We sought where we might serve Thee most usefully, and were together returning to Africa: whitherward being as far as Ostia, my mother departed this life. Much I omit, as hastening much. Receive my confessions and thanksgivings, O my God, for innumerable things whereof I am silent. But I will not omit whatsoever my soul would bring forth concerning that Thy handmaid, who brought me forth, both in the flesh, that I might be born to this temporal light, and in heart, that I might be born to Light eternal. Not her gifts, but Thine in her, would I speak of; for neither did she make nor educate herself. Thou createdst her; nor did her father and mother know what a one should come from them. And the sceptre of Thy Christ, the discipline of Thine only Son, in a Christian house, a good member of Thy Church, educated her in Thy fear. Yet for her good discipline was she wont to commend not so much her mother's diligence, as that of a certain decrepit maid-servant, who had carried her father when a child, as little ones used to be carried at the backs of elder girls. For which reason, and for her great age, and excellent conversation, was she, in that Christian family, well respected by its heads. Whence also the charge of her master's daughters was entrusted to her, to which she gave diligent heed, restraining them earnestly, when necessary, with a holy severity, and teaching them with a grave discretion. For, except at those hours wherein they were most temporately fed at their parents' table, she would not suffer them, though parched with thirst, to drink even water; preventing an evil custom, and adding this wholesome advice: "Ye drink water now, because you have not wine in your power; but when you come to be married, and be made mistresses of cellars and cupboards, you will scorn water, but the custom of drinking will abide." By this method of instruction, and the authority she had, she refrained the greediness of childhood, and moulded their very thirst to such an excellent moderation that what they should not, that they would not. And yet (as Thy handmaid told me her son) there had crept upon her a love of wine. For when (as the manner was) she, as though a sober maiden, was bidden by her parents to draw wine out of the hogshed, holding the vessel under the opening, before she poured the wine into the flagon, she sipped a little with the tip of her lips; for more her instinctive feelings refused. For this she did, not out of any desire of drink, but out of the exuberance of youth, whereby it boils over in mirthful freaks, which in youthful spirits are wont to be kept under by the gravity of their elders. And thus by adding to that little, daily littles (for whoso despiseth little things shall fall by little and little), she had fallen into such a habit as greedily to drink off her little cup brim-full almost of wine. Where was then that discreet old woman, and that her earnest countermanding? Would aught avail against a secret disease, if Thy healing hand, O Lord, watched not over us? Father, mother, and governors absent, Thou present, who createdst, who callest, who also by those set over us, workest something towards the salvation of our souls, what didst Thou then, O my God? how didst Thou cure her? how heal her? didst Thou not out of another soul bring forth a hard and a sharp taunt, like a lancet out of Thy secret store, and with one touch remove all that foul stuff? For a maid-servant with whom she used to go to the cellar, falling to words (as it happens) with her little mistress, when alone with her, taunted her with this fault, with most bitter insult, calling her wine-bibber. With which taunt she, stung to the quick, saw the foulness of her fault, and instantly condemned and forsook it. As flattering friends pervert, so reproachful enemies mostly correct. Yet not what by them Thou doest, but what themselves purposed, dost Thou repay them. For she in her anger sought to vex her young mistress, not to amend her; and did it in private, either for that the time and place of the quarrel so found them; or lest herself also should have anger, for discovering it thus late. But Thou, Lord, Governor of all in heaven and earth, who turnest to Thy purposes the deepest currents, and the ruled turbulence of the tide of times, didst by the very unhealthiness of one soul heal another; lest any, when he observes this, should ascribe it to his own power, even when another, whom he wished to be reformed, is reformed through words of his. Brought up thus modestly and soberly, and made subject rather by Thee to her parents, than by her parents to Thee, so soon as she was of marriageable age, being bestowed upon a husband, she served him as her lord; and did her diligence to win him unto Thee, preaching Thee unto him by her conversation; by which Thou ornamentedst her, making her reverently amiable, and admirable unto her husband. And she so endured the wronging of her bed as never to have any quarrel with her husband thereon. For she looked for Thy mercy upon him, that believing in Thee, he might be made chaste. But besides this, he was fervid, as in his affections, so in anger: but she had learnt not to resist an angry husband, not in deed only, but not even in word. Only when he was smoothed and tranquil, and in a temper to receive it, she would give an account of her actions, if haply he had overhastily taken offence. In a word, while many matrons, who had milder husbands, yet bore even in their faces marks of shame, would in familiar talk blame their husbands' lives, she would blame their tongues, giving them, as in jest, earnest advice: "That from the time they heard the marriage writings read to them, they should account them as indentures, whereby they were made servants; and so, remembering their condition, ought not to set themselves up against their lords." And when they, knowing what a choleric husband she endured, marvelled that it had never been heard, nor by any token perceived, that Patricius had beaten his wife, or that there had been any domestic difference between them, even for one day, and confidentially asking the reason, she taught them her practice above mentioned. Those wives who observed it found the good, and returned thanks; those who observed it not, found no relief, and suffered. Her mother-in-law also, at first by whisperings of evil servants incensed against her, she so overcame by observance and persevering endurance and meekness, that she of her own accord discovered to her son the meddling tongues whereby the domestic peace betwixt her and her daughter-in-law had been disturbed, asking him to correct them. Then, when in compliance with his mother, and for the well-ordering of the family, he had with stripes corrected those discovered, at her will who had discovered them, she promised the like reward to any who, to please her, should speak ill of her daughter-in-law to her: and none now venturing, they lived together with a remarkable sweetness of mutual kindness. This great gift also thou bestowedst, O my God, my mercy, upon that good handmaid of Thine, in whose womb Thou createdst me, that between any disagreeing and discordant parties where she was able, she showed herself such a peacemaker, that hearing on both sides most bitter things, such as swelling and indigested choler uses to break out into, when the crudities of enmities are breathed out in sour discourses to a present friend against an absent enemy, she never would disclose aught of the one unto the other, but what might tend to their reconcilement. A small good this might appear to me, did I not to my grief know numberless persons, who through some horrible and wide-spreading contagion of sin, not only disclose to persons mutually angered things said in anger, but add withal things never spoken, whereas to humane humanity, it ought to seem a light thing not to torment or increase ill will by ill words, unless one study withal by good words to quench it. Such was she, Thyself, her most inward Instructor, teaching her in the school of

clairvoyance

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

words as it were fixed in our entrails: and the examples of Thy servants, whom for black Thou hadst made bright, and for dead, alive, being piled together in the receptacle of our thoughts, kindled and burned up that our heavy torpor, that we should not sink down to the abyss; and they fired us so vehemently, that all the blasts of subtle tongues from gainsayers might only inflame us the more fiercely, not extinguish us. Nevertheless, because for Thy Name's sake which Thou hast hallowed throughout the earth, this our vow and purpose might also find some to commend it, it seemed like ostentation not to wait for the vacation now so near, but to quit beforehand a public profession, which was before the eyes of all; so that all looking on this act of mine, and observing how near was the time of vintage which I wished to anticipate, would talk much of me, as if I had desired to appear some great one. And what end had it served me, that people should repute and dispute upon my purpose, and that our good should be evil spoken of. Moreover, it had at first troubled me that in this very summer my lungs began to give way, amid too great literary labour, and to breathe deeply with difficulty, and by the pain in my chest to show that they were injured, and to refuse any full or lengthened speaking; this had troubled me, for it almost constrained me of necessity to lay down that burden of teaching, or, if I could be cured and recover, at least to intermit it. But when the full wish for leisure, that I might see how that Thou art the Lord, arose, and was fixed, in me; my God, Thou knowest, I began even to rejoice that I had this secondary, and that no feigned, excuse, which might something moderate the offence taken by those who, for their sons' sake, wished me never to have the freedom of Thy sons. Full then of such joy, I endured till that interval of time were run; it may have been some twenty days, yet they were endured manfully; endured, for the covetousness which aforetime bore a part of this heavy business, had left me, and I remained alone, and had been overwhelmed, had not patience taken its place. Perchance, some of Thy servants, my brethren, may say that I sinned in this, that with a heart fully set on Thy service, I suffered myself to sit even one hour in the chair of lies. Nor would I be contentious. But hast not Thou, O most merciful Lord, pardoned and remitted this sin also, with my other most horrible and deadly sins, in the holy water? Verecundus was worn down with care about this our blessedness, for that being held back by bonds, whereby he was most straitly bound, he saw that he should be severed from us. For himself was not yet a Christian, his wife one of the faithful; and yet hereby, more rigidly than by any other chain, was he let and hindered from the journey which we had now essayed. For he would not, he said, be a Christian on any other terms than on those he could not. However, he offered us courteously to remain at his country-house so long as we should stay there. Thou, O Lord, shalt reward him in the resurrection of the just, seeing Thou hast already given him the lot of the righteous. For although, in our absence, being now at Rome, he was seized with bodily sickness, and therein being made a Christian, and one of the faithful, he departed this life; yet hadst Thou mercy not on him only, but on us also: lest remembering the exceeding kindness of our friend towards us, yet unable to number him among Thy flock, we should be agonised with intolerable sorrow. Thanks unto Thee, our God, we are Thine: Thy suggestions and consolations tell us, Faithful in promises, Thou now requitest Verecundus for his country-house of Cassiacum, where from the fever of the world we reposed in Thee, with the eternal freshness of Thy Paradise: for that Thou hast forgiven him his sins upon earth, in that rich mountain, that mountain which yieldeth milk, Thine own mountain. He then had at that time sorrow, but Nebridius joy. For although he also, not being yet a Christian, had fallen into the pit of that most pernicious error, believing the flesh of Thy Son to be a phantom: yet emerging thence, he believed as we did; not as yet endued with any Sacraments of Thy Church, but a most ardent searcher out of truth. Whom, not long after our conversion and regeneration by Thy Baptism, being also a faithful member of the Church Catholic, and serving Thee in perfect chastity and continence amongst his people in Africa, his whole house having through him first been made Christian, didst Thou release from the flesh; and now he lives in Abraham's bosom. Whatever that be, which is signified by that bosom, there lives my Nebridius, my sweet friend, and Thy child, O Lord, adopted of a freed man: there he liveth. For what other place is there for such a soul? There he liveth, whereof he asked much of me, a poor inexperienced man. Now lays he not his ear to my mouth, but his spiritual mouth unto Thy fountain, and drinketh as much as he can receive, wisdom in proportion to his thirst, endlessly happy. Nor do I think that he is so inebriated therewith, as to forget me; seeing Thou, Lord, Whom he drinketh, art mindful of us. So were we then, comforting Verecundus, who sorrowed, as far as friendship permitted, that our conversion was of such sort; and exhorting him to become faithful, according to his measure, namely, of a married estate; and awaiting Nebridius to follow us, which, being so near, he was all but doing: and so, lo! those days rolled by at length; for long and many they seemed, for the love I bare to the easeful liberty, that I might sing to Thee, from my inmost marrow, My heart hath said unto Thee, I have sought Thy face: Thy face, Lord, will I seek. Now was the day come wherein I was in deed to be freed of my Rhetoric Professorship, whereof in thought I was already freed. And it was done. Thou didst rescue my tongue, whence Thou hadst before rescued my heart. And I blessed Thee, rejoicing; retiring with all mine to the villa. What I there did in writing, which was now enlisted in Thy service, though still, in this breathing-time as it were, panting from the school of pride, my books may witness, as well what I debated with others, as what with myself alone, before Thee: what with Nebridius, who was absent, my Epistles bear witness. And when shall I have time to rehearse all Thy great benefits towards us at that time, especially when hasting on to yet greater mercies? For my remembrance recalls me, and pleasant is it to me, O Lord, to confess to Thee, by what inward goads Thou tamedst me; and how Thou hast evened me, lowering the mountains and hills of my high imaginations, straightening my crookedness, and smoothing my rough ways; and how Thou also subduedst the brother of my heart, Alypius, unto the name of Thy Only Begotten, our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, which he would not at first vouchsafe to have inserted in our writings. For rather would he have them savour of the lofty cedars of the Schools, which the Lord hath now broken down, than of the wholesome herbs of the Church, the antidote against serpents. Oh, in what accents spake I unto Thee, my God, when I read the Psalms of David, those faithful songs, and sounds of devotion, which allow of no swelling spirit, as yet a Catechumen, and a novice in Thy real love, resting in that villa, with Alypius a Catechumen, my mother cleaving to us, in female garb with masculine faith, with the tranquillity of age, motherly love, Christian piety! Oh, what accents did I utter unto Thee in those Psalms, and how was I by them kindled towards Thee, and on fire to rehearse them, if possible, through the whole world, against the pride of mankind! And yet they are sung through the whole world, nor can any hide himself from Thy heat. With what vehement and bitter sorrow was I angered at the Manichees! and again I pitied them, for they knew not those Sacraments, those medicines, and were mad against the antidote which might have recovered them of their madness. How I would they had then been somewhere near me, and without my knowing that they were there, could have beheld my countenance, and heard my words, when I read the fourth Psalm in that time of my rest, and how that Psalm wrought upon me: When I called, the God of my righteousness heard me; in tribulation Thou enlargedst me. Have mercy upon me, O Lord, and hear my prayer. Would that what I uttered on these words, they could hear, without my knowing whether they heard, lest they should think I spake it for their sakes! Because in truth neither should I speak the same things, nor in the same way, if I perceived that they heard and saw me; nor if I spake them would they so receive them, as when I spake by and for myself before Thee, out of the natural feelings of my soul. I trembled for fear, and again kindled with hope, and with rejoicing in Thy mercy, O Father; and all issued forth both by mine eyes and voice, when Thy good Spirit turning unto us, said, O ye sons of men, how long slow of heart? why do ye love vanity, and seek after leasing? For I had loved vanity, and sought after leasing. And Thou, O Lord, hadst already magnified Thy Holy One, raising Him from the dead, and setting Him at Thy right hand, whence from on high He should send His promise, the Comforter, the Spirit of truth. And He had already sent Him, but I knew it not; He had sent Him, because He was now magnified, rising again from the dead, and ascending into heaven. For till then, the Spirit was not yet given, because Jesus was not yet glorified. And the prophet cries out, How long, slow of heart? why do ye love vanity, and seek after leasing? Know this, that the Lord hath magnified His Holy One. He cries out, How long? He cries out, Know this: and I so long, not knowing, loved vanity, and sought after leasing: and therefore I heard and trembled, because it was spoken unto such as I remembered myself to have been. For in those phantoms which I had held for truths, was there vanity and leasing; and I spake aloud many things earnestly and forcibly, in the bitterness of my remembrance. Which would they had heard, who yet love vanity and seek after leasing! They would perchance have been troubled, and have vomited it up; and Thou wouldest hear them when they cried unto Thee; for by a true death in the flesh did He die for us, who now intercedeth unto Thee for us. I further read, Be angry, and sin not. And how was I moved, O my God, who had now learned to be angry at myself for things past, that I might not sin in time to come! Yea, to be justly angry; for that it was not another nature of a people of darkness which sinned for me, as they say who are not angry at themselves, and treasure up wrath against the day of wrath, and of the revelation of Thy just judgment. Nor were my good things now without, nor sought with the eyes of flesh in that earthly sun; for they that would have joy from without soon become vain, and waste themselves on the things seen and temporal, and in their famished thoughts do lick their very shadows. Oh that they were wearied out with their famine, and said, Who will show us good things? And we would say, and they hear, The light of Thy countenance is sealed upon us. For we are not that light which enlighteneth every man, but we are enlightened by Thee; that having been sometimes darkness, we may be light in Thee. Oh that they could see the eternal Internal, which having tasted, I was grieved that I could not show It them, so long as they brought me their heart in their eyes roving abroad from Thee, while they said, Who will show us good things? For there, where I was angry within myself in my chamber, where I was inwardly pricked, where I had sacrificed, slaying my old man and commencing the purpose of a new life, putting my trust in Thee,--there hadst Thou begun to grow sweet unto me, and hadst put gladness in my heart. And I cried out, as I read this outwardly, finding it inwardly. Nor would I be multiplied with worldly goods; wasting away time, and wasted by time; whereas I had in Thy eternal Simple Essence other corn, and wine, and oil. And with a loud cry of my heart I cried out in the next verse, O in peace, O for The Self-same! O what said he, I will lay me down and sleep, for who shall hinder us, when cometh to pass that saying which is written, Death is swallowed up in victory? And Thou surpassingly art the Self-same, Who art not changed; and in Thee is rest which forgetteth all toil, for there is none other with Thee, nor are we to seek those many other things, which are not what Thou art: but Thou, Lord, alone hast made me dwell in hope. I read, and kindled; nor found I what to do to those deaf and dead, of whom myself had been, a pestilent person, a bitter and a blind bawler against those writings, which are honied with the honey of heaven, and lightsome with Thine own light: and I was consumed with zeal at the enemies of this Scripture. When shall I recall all which passed in those holy-days? Yet neither have I forgotten, nor will I pass over the severity of Thy scourge, and the wonderful swiftness of Thy mercy. Thou didst then torment me with pain in my teeth; which when it had come to such height that I could not speak, it came into my heart to desire all my friends present to pray for me to Thee, the God of all manner of health. And this I wrote on wax, and gave it them to read. Presently so soon as with humble devotion we had bowed our knees, that pain went away. But what pain? or how went it away? I was affrighted, O my Lord, my God; for from infancy I had never experienced the like. And the power of Thy Nod was deeply conveyed to me, and rejoicing in faith, I praised Thy Name. And that faith suffered me not to be at ease about my past sins, which were not yet forgiven me by Thy baptism. The vintage-vacation ended, I gave notice to the Milanese to provide their scholars with another master to sell words to them; for that I had both made choice to serve Thee, and through my difficulty of breathing and pain in my chest was not equal to the Professorship. And by letters I signified to Thy Prelate, the holy man Ambrose, my former errors and present desires, begging his advice what of Thy Scriptures I had best read, to become readier and fitter for receiving so great grace. He recommended Isaiah the Prophet: I believe, because he above the rest is a more clear foreshower of the Gospel and of the calling of the Gentiles. But I, not understanding the first lesson in him, and imagining the whole to be like it, laid it by, to be resumed when better practised in our Lord's own words. Thence, when the time was come wherein I was to give in my name, we left the country and returned to Milan. It pleased Alypius also to be with me born again in Thee, being already clothed with the humility befitting Thy Sacraments; and a most valiant tamer of the body, so as, with unwonted venture, to wear the frozen ground of Italy with his bare feet. We joined with us the boy Adeodatus, born after the flesh, of my sin. Excellently hadst Thou made him. He was not quite fifteen, and in wit surpassed many grave and learned men. I confess unto Thee Thy gifts, O Lord my God, Creator of all, and abundantly able to reform our deformities: for I had no part in that boy, but the sin. For that we brought him up in Thy discipline, it was Thou, none else, had inspired us with it. I confess unto Thee Thy gifts. There is a book of ours entitled The Master; it is a dialogue between him and me. Thou knowest that all there ascribed to the person conversing with me were his ideas, in his sixteenth year. Much besides, and yet more admirable, I found in him. That talent struck awe into me. And who but Thou could be the workmaster of such wonders? Soon didst Thou take his life from the earth: and I now remember him without anxiety, fearing nothing for his childhood or youth, or his whole self. Him we joined with us, our contemporary in grace, to be brought up in Thy discipline: and we were baptised, and anxiety for our past life vanished from us. Nor was I sated in those days with the wondrous sweetness of considering the depth of Thy counsels concerning the salvation of mankind. How did I weep, in Thy Hymns and Canticles, touched to the quick by the voices of Thy sweet-attuned Church! The voices flowed into mine ears, and the Truth distilled into my heart, whence the affections of my devotion overflowed, and tears ran down, and happy was I therein. Not long had the Church of Milan begun to use this kind of consolation and exhortation, the brethren zealously joining with harmony of voice and hearts. For it was a year, or not much more, that Justina, mother to the Emperor Valentinian, a child, persecuted Thy servant Ambrose, in favour of her heresy, to which she was seduced by the Arians. The devout people kept watch in the Church, ready to die with their Bishop Thy servant. There my mother Thy handmaid, bearing a chief part of those anxieties and watchings, lived for prayer. We, yet unwarmed by the heat of Thy Spirit, still were stirred up by the sight of the amazed and disquieted city. Then it was first instituted that after the manner of the Eastern Churches, Hymns and Psalms should be sung, lest the people should wax faint through the tediousness of sorrow: and from that day to this the custom is retained, divers (yea, almost all) Thy congregations, throughout other parts of the world following herein. Then didst Thou by a vision discover to Thy forenamed Bishop where the bodies of Gervasius and Protasius the martyrs lay hid (whom Thou hadst in Thy secret treasury stored uncorrupted so many years), whence Thou mightest seasonably produce them to repress the fury of a woman, but an Empress. For when they were discovered and dug up, and with due honour translated to the Ambrosian Basilica, not only they who were vexed with unclean spirits (the devils confessing themselves) were cured, but a certain man who had for many years been blind, a citizen, and well known to the city, asking and hearing the reason of the people's confused joy, sprang forth desiring his guide to lead him thither. Led thither, he begged to be allowed to touch with his handkerchief the bier of Thy saints, whose death is precious in Thy sight. Which when he had done, and put to his eyes, they were forthwith opened. Thence did the fame spread, thence Thy praises glowed, shone; thence the mind of that enemy, though not turned to the soundness of believing, was yet turned back from her fury of persecuting. Thanks to Thee, O my God. Whence and whither hast Thou thus led my remembrance, that I should confess these things also unto Thee? which great though they be, I had passed by in forgetfulness. And yet then, when the odour of Thy ointments was so fragrant, did we not run after Thee. Therefore did I more weep among the singing of Thy Hymns, formerly sighing after Thee, and at length breathing in Thee, as far as the breath may enter into this our house of grass. Thou that makest men to dwell of one mind in one house, didst join with us Euodius also, a young man of our own city. Who being an officer of Court, was before us converted to Thee and baptised: and quitting his secular warfare, girded himself to Thine. We were together, about to dwell together in our devout purpose. We sought where we might serve Thee most usefully, and were together returning to Africa: whitherward being as far as Ostia, my mother departed this life. Much I omit, as hastening much. Receive my confessions and thanksgivings, O my God, for innumerable things whereof I am silent. But I will not omit whatsoever my soul would bring forth concerning that Thy handmaid, who brought me forth, both in the flesh, that I might be born to this temporal light, and in heart, that I might be born to Light eternal. Not her gifts, but Thine in her, would I speak of; for neither did she make nor educate herself. Thou createdst her; nor did her father and mother know what a one should come from them. And the sceptre of Thy Christ, the discipline of Thine only Son, in a Christian house, a good member of Thy Church, educated her in Thy fear. Yet for her good discipline was she wont to commend not so much her mother's diligence, as that of a certain decrepit maid-servant, who had carried her father when a child, as little ones used to be carried at the backs of elder girls. For which reason, and for her great age, and excellent conversation, was she, in that Christian family, well respected by its heads. Whence also the charge of her master's daughters was entrusted to her, to which she gave diligent heed, restraining them earnestly, when necessary, with a holy severity, and teaching them with a grave discretion. For, except at those hours wherein they were most temporately fed at their parents' table, she would not suffer them, though parched with thirst, to drink even water; preventing an evil custom, and adding this wholesome advice: "Ye drink water now, because you have not wine in your power; but when you come to be married, and be made mistresses of cellars and cupboards, you will scorn water, but the custom of drinking will abide." By this method of instruction, and the authority she had, she refrained the greediness of childhood, and moulded their very thirst to such an excellent moderation that what they should not, that they would not. And yet (as Thy handmaid told me her son) there had crept upon her a love of wine. For when (as the manner was) she, as though a sober maiden, was bidden by her parents to draw wine out of the hogshed, holding the vessel under the opening, before she poured the wine into the flagon, she sipped a little with the tip of her lips; for more her instinctive feelings refused. For this she did, not out of any desire of drink, but out of the exuberance of youth, whereby it boils over in mirthful freaks, which in youthful spirits are wont to be kept under by the gravity of their elders. And thus by adding to that little, daily littles (for whoso despiseth little things shall fall by little and little), she had fallen into such a habit as greedily to drink off her little cup brim-full almost of wine. Where was then that discreet old woman, and that her earnest countermanding? Would aught avail against a secret disease, if Thy healing hand, O Lord, watched not over us? Father, mother, and governors absent, Thou present, who createdst, who callest, who also by those set over us, workest something towards the salvation of our souls, what didst Thou then, O my God? how didst Thou cure her? how heal her? didst Thou not out of another soul bring forth a hard and a sharp taunt, like a lancet out of Thy secret store, and with one touch remove all that foul stuff? For a maid-servant with whom she used to go to the cellar, falling to words (as it happens) with her little mistress, when alone with her, taunted her with this fault, with most bitter insult, calling her wine-bibber. With which taunt she, stung to the quick, saw the foulness of her fault, and instantly condemned and forsook it. As flattering friends pervert, so reproachful enemies mostly correct. Yet not what by them Thou doest, but what themselves purposed, dost Thou repay them. For she in her anger sought to vex her young mistress, not to amend her; and did it in private, either for that the time and place of the quarrel so found them; or lest herself also should have anger, for discovering it thus late. But Thou, Lord, Governor of all in heaven and earth, who turnest to Thy purposes the deepest currents, and the ruled turbulence of the tide of times, didst by the very unhealthiness of one soul heal another; lest any, when he observes this, should ascribe it to his own power, even when another, whom he wished to be reformed, is reformed through words of his. Brought up thus modestly and soberly, and made subject rather by Thee to her parents, than by her parents to Thee, so soon as she was of marriageable age, being bestowed upon a husband, she served him as her lord; and did her diligence to win him unto Thee, preaching Thee unto him by her conversation; by which Thou ornamentedst her, making her reverently amiable, and admirable unto her husband. And she so endured the wronging of her bed as never to have any quarrel with her husband thereon. For she looked for Thy mercy upon him, that believing in Thee, he might be made chaste. But besides this, he was fervid, as in his affections, so in anger: but she had learnt not to resist an angry husband, not in deed only, but not even in word. Only when he was smoothed and tranquil, and in a temper to receive it, she would give an account of her actions, if haply he had overhastily taken offence. In a word, while many matrons, who had milder husbands, yet bore even in their faces marks of shame, would in familiar talk blame their husbands' lives, she would blame their tongues, giving them, as in jest, earnest advice: "That from the time they heard the marriage writings read to them, they should account them as indentures, whereby they were made servants; and so, remembering their condition, ought not to set themselves up against their lords." And when they, knowing what a choleric husband she endured, marvelled that it had never been heard, nor by any token perceived, that Patricius had beaten his wife, or that there had been any domestic difference between them, even for one day, and confidentially asking the reason, she taught them her practice above mentioned. Those wives who observed it found the good, and returned thanks; those who observed it not, found no relief, and suffered. Her mother-in-law also, at first by whisperings of evil servants incensed against her, she so overcame by observance and persevering endurance and meekness, that she of her own accord discovered to her son the meddling tongues whereby the domestic peace betwixt her and her daughter-in-law had been disturbed, asking him to correct them. Then, when in compliance with his mother, and for the well-ordering of the family, he had with stripes corrected those discovered, at her will who had discovered them, she promised the like reward to any who, to please her, should speak ill of her daughter-in-law to her: and none now venturing, they lived together with a remarkable sweetness of mutual kindness. This great gift also thou bestowedst, O my God, my mercy, upon that good handmaid of Thine, in whose womb Thou createdst me, that between any disagreeing and discordant parties where she was able, she showed herself such a peacemaker, that hearing on both sides most bitter things, such as swelling and indigested choler uses to break out into, when the crudities of enmities are breathed out in sour discourses to a present friend against an absent enemy, she never would disclose aught of the one unto the other, but what might tend to their reconcilement. A small good this might appear to me, did I not to my grief know numberless persons, who through some horrible and wide-spreading contagion of sin, not only disclose to persons mutually angered things said in anger, but add withal things never spoken, whereas to humane humanity, it ought to seem a light thing not to torment or increase ill will by ill words, unless one study withal by good words to quench it. Such was she, Thyself, her most inward Instructor, teaching her in the school of

face

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