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I had bidden my knaves ride on before with my woman; I came down into a dingle where there was a stream; and, to tell the truth, I had my head down and was a-nodding, when my horse stopped; and I looked up of a sudden and there was a man on a bay mare, with a mask to his mouth, a gay green suit, a brown beard turning grey, and this ruby brooch at his throat; and he had caught my bridle.

Old Tibbie had pranked me out in brave finery: the close-cut, black-velvet waistcoat that young royalists then wore; a scarlet doublet, flaming enough to set the turkey yard afire; the silken hose and big shoe-buckles late introduced from France by the king; and a beaver hat with plumes a-nodding like my lady's fan. My curls, I mind, tumbled forward thicker than those foppish French perukes.

They spilt Lady Harriet's perfumes over their handkerchiefs, they looked into all the beautiful books of pictures, they tumbled many of the pretty Dresden china figures on the floor, they wound up the little French clock till it was broken, they made the musical work-box play its tunes, and set the Chinese mandarins a-nodding, till they very nearly nodded their heads off.

It never knows what to do with itself. It hasn't got no employment for its mind, and is always in a state of vacancy. Like them Polar bears in the wild-beast shows as is constantly a-nodding their heads from side to side, it never CAN be quiet. Which is entirely owing to its uncommon stupidity. 'Is that you, Mark? asked a faint voice from another berth.

Grania compounded a dreamy draught to mix with the mead, so that all the chieftains and warriors, with Cormac and Find himself, even while praising the drink, fell straightway a-nodding, and were soon in silent sleep, all except Ossin and Diarmuid, whom Grania had bidden not to drink.

Vegetables, yearly deciduous, are far more sympathetic. The lilac and laburnum, making lovely now the railed pathway to Christ Church meadow, were all a-swaying and a-nodding to the Duke as he passed by. "Adieu, adieu, your Grace," they were whispering. "We are very sorry for you very sorry indeed. We never dared suppose you would predecease us. We think your death a very great tragedy. Adieu!

And the other two niggers quit pertending to fool around the team and edged a little closeter, and a little closeter yet, with their mouths open and their heads a-nodding and the whites of their eyes a-rolling. Fur my part, I never hearn such a lot of dern foolishness in all my life. But the doctor, he says nothing at all.

Thus, with curses and revilings, I bade him plague me no more and presently, wearied mind and body by my long vigil, I fell a-nodding, until, wakened by the opening of the door, I looked up to behold one of the black-robed familiars, who, having set down meat and drink, vanished again, silent and speechless.