THE CHRONICLE OF CLEMENDY
noted in his muniments, How this came about I cannot exactly tell you, nor am I entirely certain as to whether all the doctors I have mentioned agree in their definitions and explanations; I thought the matter out some years ago but I confess that at present my head is slightly muddled on the subject. But I have reason to think that this Law of the Brain is made expressly on behalf of hapless lovers, so that whether they see a squirrel eating nuts on a bough, a girl carrying clothes from the wash, or a man with a brown doublet, it is all one to them and in about a minute and a half they are muttering to themselves "O my darling, my love, my dear, dear sweetheart, let me kiss thee, let me fondle thee, let me embrace thee but once again," or some nonsense of this description. And then they begin to recollect and run over everything, and their hearts seem to melt away and their throats get husky. So merely a sunbeam on a lawyer's nose sent Sir Roger off to a land of pretty fancies, and while he was thus a-maze, the sound of a rich mellow voice mounted up and came in like the ray of sunlight through the lattice, and with it tender lute-notes that tickled the heart, and bred love in excess. And this is what Sir Roger heard above the scraping and squeaking of Master Hierome's quill, in the muniment room of the tower of Penhow:
All through the nightertale I longed for thee,
In loneliness, and hearkened for the door
To open, or a footstep on the floor.
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