“This is your demesne,” quoth the minister. “I have worthy Master Bucke’s own chamber upstairs. Ah, good man, I wish he may quickly recover his strength and come back to his own, and so relieve me of the burden of all this luxury. I, whom nature meant for an eremite, have no business in kings’ chambers such as these.”

His devout faith in his own distaste for soft living and his longings after a hermit’s cell was an edifying spectacle. So was the evident pride which he took in his domain, the complacence with which he pointed out the shady, well-stocked garden, and the delight with which he produced and set upon the table a huge pasty and a flagon of wine.

“It is a fast day with me,” he said. “I may neither eat nor drink until the