Lud-in-the-Mist

by Hope Mirrlees

But Endymion Leer was right. Reason is only a drug, and its effects cannot be permanent. Master Nathaniel was soon suffering from life-sickness as much as ever.

For one thing, there was no denying that in the voice of Endymion Leer singing to Ranulph, he had once again heard the Note; and the fact tormented him, reason with himself as he might.

But it was not sufficient to make him distrust Endymion Leer—one might hear the Note, he was convinced, in the voices of the most innocent; just as the mocking cry of the cuckoo can rise from the nest of the lark or the hedge sparrow. But he was certainly not going to let him take Ranulph away to that western farm.

And yet the boy was longing, nay craving to go, for Endymion Leer, when he had been left alone with him in the parlour that morning, had fired his imagination with its delights.

When Master Nathaniel questioned him as to what other things Endymion Leer had talked about, he said that he had asked him a great many questions about the stranger in green he had seen dancing, and had made him repeat to him several times what exactly he had said to him.

"Then," said Ranulph, "he said he would sing me well and happy. And I was just beginning to feel so wonderful, when you came bursting in, father."

"I'm sorry, my boy," said Master Nathaniel. "But why did you first of all scream so and beg not to be left alone with him?"

Ranulph wriggled and hung his head. "I suppose it was like the cheese," he said sheepishly. "But, father, I want to go to that farm. Please let me go."

For several weeks Master Nathaniel steadily refused his consent. He kept the boy with him as much as his business and his official duties would permit, trying to find for him occupations and amusements that would teach him a "different tune." For Endymion Leer's words, in spite of their having had so little effect on his spiritual condition, had genuinely and permanently impressed him. However, he could not but see that Ranulph was daily wilting and that his talk was steadily becoming more fantastic; and he began to fear that his own objection to letting him go to the farm sprang merely from a selfish desire to keep him with him.

Hempie, oddly enough, was in favour of his going. The old woman's attitude to the whole affair was a curious one. Nothing would make her believe that it was not fairy fruit that Willy Wisp had given him. She said she had suspected it from the first, but to have mentioned it would have done no good to anyone.