What a futile fight it was! Would not England have been better off if Percy had won? Did not the triumph of Henry IV sow the dragon's teeth that were harvested in the Wars of the Roses? Did it not lead to the desolation of France and the crime of Jeanne d'Arc's death? It is the genius of Shakespeare alone which lends glamour to this stupidity. Look at the heroes! Has any figure in history, except the miserable Stuarts, called forth such sympathy as the reckless Hotspur? How much Percy resembles our national hero! It is the feminine in us that admires Henry V--the reformed rake! It would seem as if the prudent, calculating world reacts in shame from Henry IV, as if it saw in him a picture of itself, and admires the reckless Percy just because it dare not follow him! Falstaff is the real hero. The fool at the feast of folly! Gross and witty, brave enough but cynical--what genius to draw respectable people to such companionship and compel them to enjoy it though they are ashamed to be seen with him! I suppose the real explanation of this moral paradox is that human nature esteems a sinner more than it does a hypocrite. The Lord Chancellor was a more respectable man than Falstaff, but he was a humbug, and we are glad the fat knight flouted him. While I was thus moralizing and, no doubt, boring Ruth, we had reached the battle-field, and she exclaimed: "Why, there is Mr. Rhodes!" the historian, whom she had known in Boston--and ran to meet him. "Oh, Mr. Rhodes," she cried, "I am sure you have made some new historical discovery!" "I have, indeed," he gravely replied, but with a twinkle in his eye. "Tell me at once what it is," she asked eagerly. "I have discovered a new lie of Falstaff's--he 'fought a long hour by Shrewsbury clock,' and the clock is not visible from the battle-field!" Shrewsbury was one of the ancient and is still one of the modern gates into Wales, and had we been tied to a route we should have entered the kingdom of Glendower from there, but we received two letters which changed our plans, and led us to leave the motor, and depart in different directions by train. Of which you will hear in due time. XXI THE BLACK COUNTRY My letter was from Archdeacon Williams. I had never met him but had read his books and been much influenced by them, as I know you have been. To tell the truth, I hesitated about accepting his invitation to spend the "week-end," for I feared I might be disappointed! Authors are like miners: they put the precious metal into their books, but when one gets to the mine there is apt to be a lot of "slag" lying about! But it was not so in this case. The books are the man--he lives as he talks.