Bellew Blair, the last and, in the worldly sense, by far the ablest of the recruits of the Long Bow, was a man in early middle age, square built, but neat in figure and light on his feet, clad in a suit of leather. He mostly moved about so quickly that his figure made more impression than his face; but when he sat down smoking, in one of his rare moments of leisure, as now, it could be remarked that his face was rather calm than vivacious; a short square face with a short resolute nose, but reflective eyes much lighter than his close black hair. “It’s quite Homeric,” he added, “the two armies fighting for the body of an astronomer. You would be a sort of a symbol anyhow, since they started that insanity of calling you insane. Nobody has any business to bother you about the personal side of the matter.” Green seemed to be ruminating, and the last phrase awoke him to a decision. He began to talk. Quite straightforwardly, though with a certain schoolboy awkwardness, he proceeded to tell his friend the whole of his uncouth love story--the overturning of his spiritual world to the tune the old cow died of, or rather danced to. “And I’ve let you in for hiding me like a murderer,” he concluded. “For the sake of something that must seem to you, not even like a cow jumping over the moon, but more like a calf falling over the milking-stool. Perhaps people vowed to a great work like this ought to leave all that sort of thing behind them.” “Well, I don’t see anything to be ashamed of,” said Blair, “and in this case I don’t agree with what you say about leaving those things behind. Of some sorts of work it’s true; but not this. Shall I tell you a secret?” “If you don’t mind.” “The cow never does jump over the moon,” said Blair gravely. “It’s one of the sports of the bulls of the herd.” “I’m afraid I don’t know what you mean,” said the Professor. “I mean that women can’t be kept out of this war, because it’s a land war,” answered Blair. “If it were really a war in the air, you could have done it all by yourself. But in all wars of peasants defending their farms and homes, women have been very much on the spot; as they used to pour hot water out of the windows during the Irish evictions. Look here, I’ll tell you a story. It’s relevant because it has a moral. After all, it’s my turn, so to speak. You’ve told me the true story of the Cow that Jumped over the Moon. It’s time I told you the true story of the Castle in the Air.” He smoked silently for a moment, and then said: