outh lying on a bed,
wasted by a mysterious illness, so thin that the bones protruding had
formed angry sores on the skin. They touched him with the hem of the
monk's garment, and immediately he roused himself.

'I am whole; give me to eat!'

A murmur of wonder passed through the crowd. The monks sank to their
knees and prayed.

* * * * *

At last they lifted up the dead monk and bore him to the church. But
people all round the country crowded to see him; the sick and the
paralysed came from afar, and often went away sound as when they were
born.

They buried him at last, but still to his tomb they came from all sides,
rich and poor; and the wretched monk, who had not faith to cure the
disease of his own mind, cured the diseases of those who had faith in
him.

THE CHOICE OF AMYNTAS

I

Often enough the lover of cities tires of their unceasing noise; the din
of the traffic buzzes perpetually in his ears, and even in the silences
of night he hears the footfalls on the pavement, the dull stamping of
horses, the screeching of wheels; the fog chokes up the lungs so that he
cannot breathe; he sees no longer any charms in the tall chimneys of the
factory and the heavy smoke winding in curves against the leaden sky;
then he flies to countries where the greenness is like cold spring
water, where he can hear the budding of the trees and the stars tell him
fantastic things, the silence is full of mysterious new emotions. And so
the writer sometimes grows weary to death of the life he sees, and he
presses his hands before his eyes, that he may hide from him the endless
failure in the endless quest; then he too sets sail for Bohemia by the
Sea, and the other countries of the Frankly Impossible, where men are
always brave and women ever beautiful; there the tears of the morning
are followed by laughter at night, trials are easily surmountable,
virtue is always triumphant; there no illusions are lost, and lovers
live ever happily in a world without end.

II

Once upon a time, very long ago, when the world was younger and more
wicked than it is now, there lived in the West Country a man called
Peter the Schoolmaster. But he was very different from ordinary
schoolmasters, for he was a scholar and a man of letters; he was
consequently very poor. All his life he had pored over old books and
musty parchments; but from them he had acquired little wisdom, for one
bright spring-time he f