told you, and perhaps it will bring him
half way round. Sooner or later he must come round; and the only way to
do it is to work him slowly. When he sees in how many ways I have been
wronged, and how beautifully I have borne it all, he will begin to say
to himself, 'Now this young man may be improving.' But he never will
say, 'He hath no need of it.'"

"I should rather think not, you conceited Robin, or whatever else I am
to call you now. But I bargain for one thing--whatever may happen, I
shall never call you anything else but Robin. It suits you, and you look
well with it. Yordas, indeed, or whatever it may be--"

"No bargain is valid without a seal," etc., etc. In the old but
ever-vivid way they went on, until they were forced to part, at the
very lips of the house itself, after longing lingerings. The air of
the fields was sweet with summer fragrance and the breath of night; the
world was ripe with soft repose, whose dreams were hope and happiness;
and the heaven spread some gentle stars, to show mankind the way to it.
Then a noble perfume strewed the ambient air with stronger presence, as
the farmer, in his shirt sleeves, came, with a clay pipe, and grumbled,
"Wherever is our Mary all this time?"

CHAPTER LV

NICHOLAS THE FISH

Five hundred years ago there was a great Italian swimmer, even greater
than our Captain Webb; inasmuch as he had what the wags of the age
unjustly ascribe to our hero, that is to say, web toes and fingers. This
capable man could, if history be true, not only swim for a week without
ceasing (reassuring solid nature now and then by a gulp of live fish),
but also could expand his chest so considerably that it held enough air
for a day's consumption. Fortified thus, he explored Charybdis and all
the Liparic whirlpools, and could have found Cadman's gun anywhere, if
it had only been there. But at last the sea had its revenge upon him,
through the cruel insistence of his king.

No man so amphibious has since arisen through the unfathomed tide of
time. But a swimmer and diver of great repute was now living not far
from Teesmouth. That is to say, he lived there whenever the state of the
weather or the time of year stranded him in dry misery. Those who have
never come across a man of this description might suppose that he was
happy and content at home with his wife and growing family, assuaging
the brine in the delightful manner commended by Hero to Leander. But,
alas! it was not so a