A month lagged slowly by, Bland and I spending our days mainly in shooting, and the short time between supper and bed in converse, or, rather, in his talking and my listening. Toward the end of the month he began to drink deeply, and to talk more wildly than ever. One evening, after I had listened with my utmost patience to his railing on this and that folly of mankind, or what he accounted such, he turned to the subject of love, which he reckoned the veriest madness of all, which had been artfully turned by priests and lawmakers for their profit, and the subjection of their fellows to the institution of marriage; of which he said many vile and abominable things, confounding the divine affection of the soul with the instinct that leads animals to pair, until my gorge rose, and I cried-- "Hold! I will not sit to listen to this foul raving." Such fury seized him at my words as I hope I may never see again. He sprang to his feet, his eyes glaring, his every limb trembling. "Dare you call me madman?" he shouted. "You whom I have sheltered and fed, lumpish mooncalf, unlettered bumpkin! Out of my house, or I will make an end of you!" As he turned, foaming at the mouth with rage, to reach his gun, I deemed it best to put the door between us. At length I saw that the hermit was a madman, whose mind was possessed with the belief that he alone, of all human creatures, had his right wits, and the rest of the world was mad. Some touch of his infirmity I have seen in others, but nothing so colossal. 'Twas a keen and frosty night, the beginning of a spell of bitter weather, as I surmised from the silence on the fen. Many birds, which stay on the marshes till Christmas, or later in mild winters, I had seen in flight during the last two or three days, and many more must have taken their departure, for there to be such extraordinary quietude. On the morrow it would be easy to return to Belshaw over the frozen bog, but it would be foolhardy to venture now, for the thin crescent of the moon was low down in the west. I did not choose to rouse Bland's servants to ask for anything, so I paced up and down the hill ten or twelve times to warm myself, and then lay down in the barn, pulling hay over me, and waited for the dawn. When it came, I tried Bland's door, and found it unbarred, so I stepped lightly in, and gathered my belongings together without arousing him, or at least without his giving any sign of being disturbed. I had no occasion to enter the inner room, all my property being in the outer one. So I turned my back on Lindholme, uncertain where to hide my head now, but intending to take counsel with John and Bess.