For some time I stuck close to my shoemaker's bench, seeking quiet, as any creature does that is deeply wounded (for the wound was deep, my dear; it was deep; but I would not have had it otherwise), and seeing only those home friends, who had known the shape of my cradle, as it were, and to whom I could speak or not, as my mind was. I found solid comfort in the society of Ham, and would spend many hours in the old grist-mill; sometimes sitting in the loft with him and the sparrows, sometimes hanging over the stones, and watching the wheat pour down between them, and hearing the roar and the grinding of them. The upper and nether millstones! How Ham's words would come back, over and over, as I thought how my life was ground between pain and longing! One day, I mind, Ham came and found me so, and I suppose my face may have showed part of what I felt; for he put his great hand on my shoulder, and shouted in my ear, "Wheat flour, Jakey! prime wheat flour, and good riz bread; I see it rising, don't you be afeard!" But by and by the neighbours in the country round heard of my being home again; and thinking that I must have learned a vast deal overseas, they were set on having me here and there to fiddle for them. At first I thought no, I could not; there seemed to be only one tune my fiddle would ever play again, and that no dancing tune. But with using common sense, and some talk with Father L'Homme-Dieu, this foolishness passed away, and it seemed the best thing I could do, being in sadness myself, was to give what little cheer I could to others. So I went, and the first time was the worst, and I saw at once here was a thing I could do, and do, it might be, better than another. For being with the marquis, Melody, and seeing how high folks moved, and spoke, and held themselves, it was borne in upon me that I had special fitness for a task that might well be connected with the pleasure of youth in dancing. Dancing, as I have pointed out to you many times, may be considered in two ways: first, as the mere fling of high spirits, young animals skipping and leaping, as kids in a meadow, and with no thought save to leap the highest, and prance the furthest; but second, and more truly, I must think, to show to advantage the grace (if any) and perfection of the human body, which we take to be the work of a divine hand, and the beauty of motion in accord with music. And whereas I have heard dancing condemned as unmanly, and fit only for women and young boys, I must still take the other hand, and think there is no finer sight than a well-proportioned man, with a sense of his powers, and a desire to do justice to them, moving through the figures of a contra-dance. But this is my hobby, my dear, and I may have wearied you with it before now.