r over his bones; his
face was shrunk and nipped with hunger; a ragged beard hung from his
chin. His attire was the same as he had worn when last I saw him, but
so tattered and dirty and threadbare that it was a marvel to me it did
not fall to pieces before my eyes. The great ruff drooped brown and
dank upon his shoulders. The gay shirt and doublet hung like grey
sackcloth on his limbs. His shoes flapped in fragments about his feet,
and the empty scabbard at his belt swung like the shreds of a worn rope
between his legs.

He was a sorry spectacle in truth, and but for his unchanged speech I
might have looked at him long ere I knew him.

"I am come," said he, when I had greeted him and bidden him sit and
rest, "like a dove from the ends of the earth, yet with not so much as
an olive leaf to fill my mouth withal. My Hollander, even the poet,
friend of the immortals, can eat. Even the honey on Mount Athos
satisfieth not; and nectar leaveth its void. As a sign of peace and
good-will, my humble comrade, I will eat whatsoever bread and meat you
may place before me; for in truth my teeth have lost their cunning, and
he who late warbled elegiacs hath almost forgot how to swallow a cup of
vulgar sack."

'Twas not long before with Jeannette's aid I set before him a meal the
very sight of which filled his eyes with tears, and set his hand a
trembling. It seemed kinder not to stand by while he devoured it; yet
even in the adjoining room we could hear him, betwixt his mouthfuls,
talk of Hebe and Ganymede, and utter brave speeches about Venus who ever
haunted his wandering steps, and in mortal guise waited on her favoured
servant. By which I understood he was struck with the beauty of my
sweet Jeannette; for the which I forgave him much.

But when, after a little, we returned to see how he fared, he was fallen
forward on the table in a deep sleep, from which it never even roused
him when I lifted him in my arms and laid him on a clean straw bed in
the corner of the office. And for twenty hours by the clock did he
sleep there, never turning a limb, till it seemed a charity to rouse him
and give him more food.

Then when he found himself refreshed and filled, he gave us his news;
which, shorn of all its flourishes, was shortly this.

After he had written his letter from Chester, he was detained many a
week in custody as a vagabond and a lunatic. And at last, shaking the
dust of that city from his feet, he tramped to t