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Above and beyond was a network of brambles, where ripe blackberries hung in such tempting clusters that it was hardly in human nature to resist them, and Merle, with purple-stained fingers, loitered and lingered to enjoy the feast. "If you're not quick the tide will have turned and it won't be half so nice to bathe!" urged Mavis impatiently.

Huge wagons, loaded with purple-stained cases of Algerian wine, bumping over the stones; strings of bells wound round the great horns of horses' collars jingling like sleigh-bells in winter; whips in the hands of fierce-eyed carters cracking round the heads of large, sad mules; hooters of automobiles and immense motor diligences blaring; men shouting at animals; animals barking or braying, snorting or clucking at men; unseen soldiers marching to music; a town clock sweetly chiming the hour, and, above all, rising like spray from the ocean of din, high voices of Arabs chaffering, disputing, arguing.

Wilfrid, Archbishop of York, gave a copy of the Gospels ornamented in this manner to York Minster, his biographer described the book as a thing almost miraculous. Manuscripts entirely composed of leaves of purple vellum are of the greatest rarity, and many are described by palaeographers as purple-stained when they are only partially so.

He discovered now wrinkled and purple-stained lids under the deep shadow of the brows and eyes were so sunken that there seemed to be no pupils there. Over the cheek bones the skin was drawn so tightly that it shone, and the cheeks fell away into cadaverous hollows. But the lips, beneath the shag of grey beard, were tightly compressed. No, this was not sleep.