non-official, who is for the moment engaged in an _opusfaustum_ can
act certainly as a conductor or medium, and the influence of what he
is touching or doing passes to you from him. This is admitted by every
one who worships trees, wells, and stones; and indeed it stands to
reason, for it is but a branch of the well-known _'Sanctificatio ex
loco, opere, tactu vel conditione.'_ I will admit that this power is
but vague, slight, tenuous, and dissipatory, still there it is: though
of course its poor effect is to that of the _Benedictio major_ what a
cat's-paw in the Solent is to a north-east snorter on Lindsey Deeps.

I am sorry to have been at such length, but it is necessary to have
these things thrashed out once for all. So now you see how I, being on
pilgrimage, could give a kind of little creeping blessing to the
people on the way, though, as St Louis said to the Hascisch-eaters,
_'May it be a long time before you can kiss my bones.'_

So I entered the 'Sun' inn and saw there a woman sewing, a great
dull-faced man like an ox, and a youth writing down figures in a
little book. I said--

'Good morning, madam, and sirs, and the company. Could you give me a
little red wine?' Not a head moved.

True I was very dirty and tired, and they may have thought me a
beggar, to whom, like good sensible Christians who had no nonsense
about them, they would rather have given a handsome kick than a cup of
cold water. However, I think it was not only my poverty but a native
churlishness which bound their bovine souls in that valley.

I sat down at a very clean table. I notice that those whom the Devil