olive groves beneath the hill on which stands the
Greek priory of Mar Elias, when my companion said ingratiatingly: 'If
you please, we will call at the monastery and take refreshment. The
monks are friends of mine. It was with the object of this visit that I
led our ride in this direction.'

As I raised no objection, we tied up our horses in the garden of the
monastery and went in. We found the Prior in the middle of a
tea-party, a number of Greek neighbours, of both sexes, being gathered
in a very comfortably-furnished room.

My friend, ere entering, implored me in a whisper not to tell them
that my accident was owing to his clumsy horsemanship. Instead, he
put about some story which I did not clearly overhear--something about
a fight with desert Arabs, redounding to my credit, I conclude, from
the solicitude which everyone expressed on my account when he had told
it. Some of the ladies present insisted on a second washing of my
wounds with rose-water, and a second bandaging with finer linen than
the Patriarch had used. Some monks, their long hair frizzed
coquettishly and tied with ribbon, helped in the work. I did not like
the look of them. My friend meanwhile was talking to some pretty
girls.

When we rode off again towards Jerusalem he asked me questions about
the Anglican and Roman Churches, and seemed to think it a sad defect
in the former that it lacked the faculty of dispensation with regard
to marriage.

After a space of silence, as we were riding down the hill by the
Ophthalmic Hospital, with the Tower of David and the city walls
crowning the steep before us, he inquired: 'Did you observe those
girls with whom I was conversing--especially the one with pale-blue
ribbons. It is her I love.' And, when I complimented him on his good
taste, he added: 'I think I shall become a Catholic,' and started
weeping.

I then learnt from his broken speech that he was himself the hapless
lover of his story to the Patriarch. The girl whom I had seen at Mar
Elias was the sister of his brother's wife. I was as sympathetic in
appearance as I could be; but somehow all my sympathy was with the
Patriarch, who seemed to me the only man whom I had seen that day.

CHAPTER XXI

THE UNPOPULAR LANDOWNER

I had decided to buy land and settle down in Syria; and had obtained
consent from home upon condition that I did not spend more than a
certain sum of money, not a large one, which, Suleyman had told me,
would be quite s