the dark ages?"

Crowder laughed. "That is a big question," said he, "and the only answer
I can give you in a general way is that there were so many things that
I was not able to do, or did not dare to do, that I look upon those
centuries as the most disagreeable part of my whole life. But you must
not suppose that everybody felt as I did. A great many of the people by
whom I was surrounded at that doleful period appeared to be happier and
better satisfied with their circumstances than any I have known before
or after. There was little ambition, less responsibility; and if the poor
and weak suffered from the rapacity and violence of the rich and strong,
they accepted their misfortunes as if they were something they were bound
to expect, such as bad weather. I am not going to talk history, and there
is one thing that your question reminds me of. During that portion of the
middle ages which is designated as dark, I employed myself in a great many
different ways: I was laborer, sailor, teacher, and I cannot tell you what
besides; but more frequently than anything else I was a teacher."

"Thee must have been an angel of light," Mrs. Crowder remarked.

"No," said he; "an angel of light would have been very conspicuous in
those days. I didn't pose for such a part. In fact, if I had not
succeeded in appearing like a partial ignoramus I should have been
obliged to go into a monastery, for in those days the monks were the only
people who knew anything. They expected to do all the teaching that was
done; but, for all that, a few scholars cropped up now and then, and here
and there, who did not care to have monks for masters; and by instructing
these in a very modest, quiet way I frequently managed to make a living."

"I should think," I said, "that at any time and in any period you would