"But a little more, 'tis nearly to the brim."
And his last vision was of Agnes.
So the land was rid of Bolster; but the people were not so thankful to Agnes as they might have been, so she "skipped." She led a wandering life, making and selling an ointment which people rubbed over their eyes to make them see clearer, and her fame followed her, so people began to praise and dedicate churches to her. The place where Bolster was slain became St. Agnes, and the basin into which his life's blood flowed may be seen to this day. A pebble thrown in finds its way to the sea if there is nothing to prevent it.
Guy said he liked to hear stories told on the spot, things seemed so real. Here was the very basin which held Bolster's shaving-water before it became the receiver for his blood. Just as good being here as reading an illustrated article in a magazine.
The Bookworm said the story was only one of a class, and it was quite easy to separate fact from fiction when we once knew how. In this case, Bolster was not a real person, but a snow-god, to whom the people offered a virgin every New Year to make him melt and let the earth bring forth her increase. St. Agnes made the people see the error of their ways—that was the ointment which she made for giving people clearer vision—and so it was said that she had slain Bolster. She was, no doubt, artful, and was all the more popular in consequence, it becoming a saying that "an artful maid is stronger than Bolster."
Guy said he liked the story best as it was, and had no patience with the Bookworm's treatment of it as a myth. He'd put money on Agnes, he said, to make her way in the world as well as any twentieth-century woman.
