afraid, and let out the lions, themselves timid
prisoners enough, through the streets during the fair. The incident
suggested to the somewhat barren pen-men of the day a "morality"
adapted from the old pagan books--a stage-play in which the God of Wine
should return in triumph from the East. In the cathedral square the
pageant was presented, amid an intolerable noise of every kind of
pipe-music, with Denys in the chief part, upon a gaily-painted chariot,
in soft silken raiment, and, for [64] headdress, a strange
elephant-scalp with gilded tusks.

And that unrivalled fairness and freshness of aspect:--how did he alone
preserve it untouched, through the wind and heat? In truth, it was not
by magic, as some said, but by a natural simplicity in his living.
When that dark season of his troubles arrived he was heard begging
querulously one wintry night, "Give me wine, meat; dark wine and brown
meat!"--come back to the rude door of his old home in the cliff-side.
Till that time the great vine-dresser himself drank only water; he had
lived on spring-water and fruit. A lover of fertility in all its
forms, in what did but suggest it, he was curious and penetrative
concerning the habits of water, and had the secret of the divining-rod.
Long before it came he could detect the scent of rain from afar, and
would climb with delight to the great scaffolding on the unfinished
tower to watch its coming over the thirsty vine-land, till it rattled
on the great tiled roof of the church below; and then, throwing off his
mantle, allow it to bathe his limbs freely, clinging firmly against the
tempestuous wind among the carved imageries of dark stone.

It was on his sudden return after a long journey (one of many
inexplicable disappearances), coming back changed somewhat, that he ate
flesh for the first time, tearing the hot, red morsels with his
delicate fingers in a kind of [65] wild greed. He had fled to the
south from the first forbidding days of a hard winter which came at
last. At the great seaport of Marseilles he had trafficked with
sailors from all parts of the world, from Arabia and India, and bought
their wares, exposed now for sale, to the wonder of all, at the Easter
fair--richer wines and incense than had been known in Auxerre, seeds of
marvellous new flowers, creatures wild and tame, new pottery painted in
raw gaudy tints, the skins of animals, meats fried with unheard-of
condiments. His stall formed a strange, unwonted p