"Gibberty, did you say?" interrupted Master Nathaniel. He seemed to have heard the name before. "Yes. You may remember having heard her name in the law-courts--it isn't a common one. She had a case many years ago. I think it was a thieving labourer her late husband had thrashed and dismissed who sued her for damages." "And where exactly is this farm?" "Well, it's about sixty miles away from Lud, just out of a village called Swan-on-the-Dapple." "Swan-on-the-Dapple? Then it's quite close to the Elfin Marches!" cried Master Nathaniel indignantly. "About ten miles away," replied Endymion Leer imperturbably. "But what of that? Ten miles on a busy self-supporting farm is as great a distance as a hundred would be at Lud. Still, under the circumstances, I can understand your fighting shy of the west. I must think of some other plan." "I should think so indeed!" growled Master Nathaniel. "However," continued the doctor, "you have really nothing to fear from that quarter. He would, in reality, be much further moved from temptation there than here. The smugglers, whoever they are, run great risks to get the fruit into Lud, and they're not going to waste it on rustics and farmhands." "All the same," said Master Nathaniel doggedly, "I'm not going to have him going so damnably near to ... a certain place." "The place that does not exist in the eyes of the law, eh?" said Endymion Leer with a smile. Then he leaned forward in his chair, and gazed steadily at Master Nathaniel. This time, his eyes were kind as well as piercing. "Master Nathaniel, I'd like to reason with you a little," he said. "Reason I know, is only a drug, and, as such, its effects are never permanent. But, like the juice of the poppy, it often gives a temporary relief." He sat silent for a few seconds, as if choosing in advance the words he meant to use. Then he began, "We have the misfortune of living in a country that marches with the unknown; and that is apt to make the fancy sick. Though we laugh at old songs and old yarns, nevertheless, they are the yarn with which we weave our picture of the world."