But his heart was bitter as absinthe.

Everyone else was strong, and hardy, and manly; even the women were manly, they could eat and drink.

Rough-headed Jearje, at the churn, ate hard cheese, and drank ale, and turned the crank at the same time.

Round-headed Bill Nye sat on the form, happily munching cheese, oh so happily! Gabriel (of the Koran) would never believe how happily, sipping his tall quart-mug.

Mrs. Iden bustled to and fro, for all her fifty years, more energetic than all the hamlet put together.

Luce, the maid, had worked since six, and would go on hours longer.

Alere Flamma was smoking and sipping Goliath ale in the summer-house; he could eat, and drink, and walk about as a man should.

Amaryllis was as strong as a young lioness; he had seen her turn the heavy cheese-tub round as if it were a footstool.

He alone was weak, pale, contemptible; unable to eat strong meat; unable to drink strong drink; put down to sip milk as an infant; unable to walk farther than Plum Corner in the garden; unable to ride even; a mere shadow, a thing of contempt.

They told him he was better. There was just a trifle of pink in his face, and he could walk to Plum Corner in the garden without clinging to Amaryllis's arm, or staying to steady himself and get his balance more than three or four times. He had even ventured a little way up the meadow-path, but it made him giddy to stoop to pick a buttercup. They told him he was better; he could eat a very little more, and sip a wine-glassful of Goliath.

Better! What a mockery to a man who could once row, and ride, and shoot, and walk his thirty miles, and play his part in any sport you chose! It was absinthe to him.

He could not stoop to turn the churn—he had to sip milk in the presence of strong men drinking strong drink; to be despised; the very servant-maid talking of him as in a decline.

And before Amaryllis; before whom he wished to appear a man.

And full of ideas, too; he felt that he had ideas, that he could think, yet he could scarce set one foot safely before the other, not without considering first and feeling his way.

Rough-headed Jearje, without a thought, was as strong as the horses he led in the waggon.

Round-headed Bill Nye, without an idea, could mow all day in the heat of July.

He, with all his ideas, his ambitions, his exalted hopes, his worship of Amaryllis—he was nothing. Less than nothing—a shadow.

To despise oneself is more bitter than absinthe.

Let us go to Al Hariri once again, and hear what he says. The speaker has been very, very ill, but is better:—

How should such a chant as this enter a young man's heart who felt himself despicable in the sight of his mistress?

"Should you like a little more?" asked Amaryllis, in a very gentle tone, now he had obeyed her.

"I would rather not," said Amadis, still hanging his head.

His days were mixed of honey and wormwood; sweet because of Amaryllis, absinthe because of his weakness.

A voice came from the summer-house; Flamma was shouting an old song, with heavy emphasis here and there, with big capital letters:—

"Haw! Haw! Haw!" laughed Bill Nye, with his mouth full. "Th' zun do look main red in the marning, surely."

They heard the front door open and shut; Iden had come in for his lunch, and, by the sound of the footsteps, had brought one of his gossips with him.

At this Mrs. Iden began to ruffle up her feathers for battle.

Iden came through into the dairy.

"Now, you ain't wanted here," she said. "Poking your nose into everything. Wonder you don't help Luce make the beds and sweep the floor!"

"Can I help'ee?" said Iden, soothingly. "Want any wood for the fire—or anything?"

"As if Luce couldn't fetch the wood—and chop it, as well as you. Why can't you mind your business? Here's Bill Nye been waiting these two hours to see you"—following Iden towards the sitting-room. "Who have you brought in with you now? Of course, everybody comes in of a butter-making morning, just the busiest time! Oh! it's you! Sit still, Mr. Duck; I don't mind you. What will you take?"

More ale and cheese here, too; Iden and Jack Duck sat in the bow-window and went at their lunch. So soon as they were settled, out flounced Mrs. Iden into the dairy: "The lazy lot of people in this house—I never saw anything like it!"

It was true.

There was Alere Flamma singing in the summer-house; Amadis Iden resting on the form; Amaryllis standing by him; Bill Nye munching; Jearje indolently rotating the churn with one hand, and feeding himself with the other; Luce sitting down to her lunch in the kitchen; Iden lifting his mug in the bow-window; Jack Duck with his great mouth full; eight people—and four little children trotting down the road with baskets of food.

"The lazy lot of people in this house; I never saw anything like it."

And that was the beauty of the place, the "Let us not trouble ourselves;" "a handful in Peace and Quiet" is better than set banquets; crumbs for everybody, and for the robin too; "God listens to those who pray to him. Let us eat, and drink, and think of nothing;" believe me, the plain plenty, and the rest, and peace, and sunshine of an old farmhouse, there is nothing like it in this world!

"I never saw anything like it. Nothing done; nothing done; the morning gone and nothing done; and the butter's not come yet!"

Homer is thought much of; now, his heroes are always eating. They eat all through the Iliad, they eat at Patroclus' tomb; Ulysses eats a good deal in the Odyssey: Jupiter eats. They only did at Coombe-Oaks as was done on Olympus.