an aught else, the breath of a fresh lass-like
flower! I was tormented till now by the reek of the damned rising from
under me. This is heaven's own incense, I think!'

And Guy inhaled the flowers and spake prettily to them.

'They have a melancholy sweetness, friend,' said Farina. 'I think of
whispering Fays, and Elf, and Erl, when their odour steals through me.
Do not you?'

'Nay, nor hope to till my wits are clean gone,' was the Goshawk's reply.
'To my mind, 'tis an honest flower, and could I do good service by the
young maiden who there set it, I should be rendering back good service
done; for if that flower has not battled the devil in my nose this
night, and beaten him, my head's a medlar!'

'I scarce know whether as a devout Christian I should listen to that,
friend,' Farina mildly remonstrated. 'Lilies are indeed emblems of the
saints; but then they are not poor flowers of earth, being transfigured,
lustrous unfadingly. Oh, Cross and Passion! with what silver serenity
thy glory enwraps me, gazing on these fair bells! I look on the white
sea of the saints. I am enamoured of fleshly anguish and martyrdom. All
beauty is that worn by wan-smiling faces wherein Hope sits as a crown
on Sorrow, and the pale ebb of mortal life is the twilight of joy
everlasting. Colourless peace! Oh, my beloved! So walkest thou for my
soul on the white sea ever at night, clad in the straight fall of thy
spotless virgin linen; bearing in thy hand the lily, and leaning thy
cheek to it, where the human rose is softened to a milky bloom of red,
the espousals of heaven with earth; over thee, moving with thee, a
wreath of sapphire stars, and the solitude of purity around!'

'Ah!' sighed the Goshawk, dandling his flower-pot; 'the moon gives
strokes as well's the sun. I' faith, moon-struck and maid-struck in
one! He'll be asking for his head soon. This dash of the monk and the
minstrel is a sure sign. That 's their way of loving in this land: they
all go mad, straight off. I never heard such talk.'

Guy accompanied these remarks with a pitiful glance at his companion.

'Come, Sir Lover! lend me a help to give back what we've borrowed to its
rightful owner. 'S blood! but I feel an appetite. This night-air takes
me in the wind like a battering ram. I thought I had laid in a stout
four-and-twenty hours' stock of Westphalian Wurst at Master Groschen's
supper-table. Good stuff, washed down with superior Rhine wine; say your
Liebfrauenmilch for